I have said on several occasions that (1) I continue to believe NAIRU is an important and useful concept; and (2) I believe that NAIRU is lower recently than it had been in the 1980s. I believe NAIRU has declined from about 6% at the end of the 1980s to about 5 ½% currently.
The integration of emerging economies into world markets, the offshoring of production and services, the rising global competition in markets, and the growing awareness that economic stability and development, but also policy issues related to energy, the environment or migration require a global perspective and at times even cooperative responses, have put globalisation at the centre of international policy debates.