Whereas two years ago the focus of attention was on Asia and other emerging markets, the focus now seems to be more on the United States than in any earlier stage I can remember.
I would like to take the opportunity today to update some of the things I said two years ago, but to do so in a way which focuses on medium-term developments. I will take as my starting point a comparison of economic growth rates of developed countries over the most recent decade (Table 1).