Although these introductory remarks have to be brief, I would like to set the stage for today’s discussions by highlighting what I believe to be the critical premises for a Central Bank’s mandate on financial stability and by identifying some of the risks we are faced with today.
In the 1950s, better than 80 percent of children born in middle-class households grew up to outearn their parents, but more recently only around half do. One factor in this decline is the increase in income inequality I just noted, and another is slower productivity growth.