Those events, and the deeper issues that triggered them, have mainly affected some of the G7 economies and have cast a shadow over their growth outlook in the near term. Emerging market economies have been less affected; in fact, in parts of Asia the main policy challenge has been to deal with the threat of overheating.
Will growth performance for these different parts of the world continue to diverge? Or will they converge again – and if so, how? And how successful will we – all of us – be in containing the inflationary tendencies which have been evident up to now? These will be among the key economic questions for 2008.