What I would like to do this evening is to step back from the constant flow of high-frequency data on the Australian economy and explore a longer-term issue – namely the potential links between demographic developments, productivity growth and our society’s attitudes to risk and innovation.
To try to make these issues a little more concrete, could I begin by asking you to think about two questions:   How has our society’s attitude to risk and innovation evolved over time and what implications are there for productivity growth?   As the population ages, how might our attitude to risk and innovation continue to change?