This is all the more worrying when one considers that in forty years’ time the ratio of people of working age (20–69) to elderly retirees will have halved, from 4 to 2. Even just to maintain per capita living standards at their current levels would require an increase in labour productivity of 25 per cent.
More jobs, more output: but how to achieve both together? Certainly, the recession has been keeping Italian consumers and investors in a state of suspension for too long now, more because of uncertainty and poor confidence than a lack of income. Stimulus must therefore come from macroeconomic policy.