The IMF itself has spoken of a “new normal” – a downward shift in potential growth of advanced economies because of the impairment of their financial sectors and capital destruction.
It will take at least a few years for advanced economy households and firms to repair their balance sheets at the individual level and for the economies to restore external  2  BIS Review 131/2010  and internal balances at the aggregate level. In the process, advanced economies will have to contend with structural fiscal deficits, demographic transitions, worsening income distribution and unemployment.