Improvements in business confidence and in the production outlook, as reflected in recent business sentiment surveys, should result in higher investment spending. However, public investment is below trend in some surplus countries. Also on a positive note, the risk assessment of the growth outlook is more and more balancing.
1  Traditionally, when economists talk about happiness or satisfaction, they use a technical term, “utility,” whose central role in both economics and philosophy goes back to the time of Thomas Jefferson – in particular, to the introduction of the “utilitarian” approach in philosophy associated with Jeremy Bentham, an approach that has had a strong influence on economics.