Robert Gordon of Northwestern University has just published an extremely interesting and pessimistic book that argues we will have to accept the fact that productivity will not grow in future at anything like the rates of the period before 1973.
I would like to confine myself to the euro area insurance sector. We note that despite the recovery in financial markets in the course of this year, most insurers still reported lacklustre financial performances in the first half of 2009. This was mainly because underwriting continued to be challenged. High risk aversion among retail investors reduced the demand for life insurance products.