It is a pleasure to speak to you this morning. When the former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was asked what the greatest challenge was for a statesman, he is said to have replied: “Events, dear boy, events”. And indeed, as policymakers, we are constantly faced by unpredictable events and shocks. But what makes the situation we face today especially challenging is that we are not only facing a sequence of ill-fated events – the pandemic, the energy crisis, Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine and high inflation – but that as a result, the environment around us is also changing. Some of the major trends ... (full story)