Thank you for once again coming to support the Anika Foundation[1], on the eighth of these annual fundraising occasions. Once again my topic is ‘challenges for economic policy’. It always seems as though there are some challenges to talk about. The challenges I want to focus on are those involved in dealing with and then recovering from the financial crisis that enveloped the major European countries and the United States (US) (and, briefly, the whole world) in late 2008. My view is that policies were very effective in averting a potential catastrophe five years ago. But fostering a strong recovery has been much more ... (full story)