The introduction of the euro has contributed to intra-European financial integration which, in turn, has facilitated the free  2  At the beginning of the 1990s, the dispersion in inflation rates across the countries, which now belong to the euro area, was, on average, around 6 percentage points (standard deviation measured in unweighted terms).
While we’re talking the talk on productivity, we are not doing a good job of walking the walk. We have to do better. And over the next decade or two, we will be working to improve this country’s productivity amid significant global economic change. This evening, I’ll focus on three important and ongoing elements of this change: technological innovation, globalization, and demographic shifts.