These moves have been encouraged, in part, by policy actions of many central banks around the world, and, in part, by a stronger sense that the world’s major industrial countries, the G7, are beginning to address a number of the factors that have contributed to uncertainty and volatility in financial markets around the globe.
A number of factors have contributed to the unusually low long-term interest rates that we have seen, but one of them has been the changing attitude of savers toward risk.2 Economic growth has been relatively steady at a moderate pace, and inflation, although higher, is expected to remain fairly low.