IMF chief Christine Lagarde on the global economy
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/the-christine-lagarde-consensus-imf/390309/
“I asked Lagarde
whether the world has entered into a prolonged period of slow economic
growth—what economists call “secular stagnation.” She said that she prefers to
describe the situation as the “new mediocre,” and explained that global
economic growth over the past two years, and again this year, has averaged
about 3.5 percent—the same average rate at which the world economy has grown
over the last two decades. What has changed, Lagarde noted with concern, is the
nature of that growth: “It is not creating the jobs that are needed and job
creation is spread out in a way that does not respond to the needs. It is also
not sufficiently boosting productivity and, surprisingly, emerging markets,
which have the potential to grow at a much faster pace, are not doing so.””