That said, climate transition is far from being the primary cause of the recent surge in energy prices across the world. Indeed, it has more to do with a combination of global factors: rapid demand recovery from the pandemicinduced recession, supply disruptions, geopolitical tensions. And in the specific case of Europe, the shock on energy prices is amplified by the run-up in wholesale electricity market prices, due to a shortage in natural gas. Page 9 sur 9 Afterwards, beyond our projection horizon, the transition to net zero might have a more significant impact on inflation, especially if it were to be disorderlyii. The net zero transition would then result into a negative supply shock, in particular if the capacity increase in alternative energy sources were too slow. In addition, the reallocation of demand involved by the transition might trigger relative prices changes in some sectors. The level of r* – the natural interest rate – could also be affected in two opposite ways: higher green investments will increase it; but a negative impact on productivity growth would reduce it. On many of these questions, it’s too early to tell. We need urgently more analytical work on the macroeconomic modelling of climate transition; more than ever, monetary policy will remain a judgment exercise, looking through temporary phenomena while averting lasting increases in inflation. Central banks will have to ensure that these shocks on relative prices do not result into a lasting increase in inflation.
All these initiatives are key to ensuring our capacity to finance the two “Great transformations”, ecological and digital, that we will all have to pursue in the long run. Both require very significant investments in the coming years and hence a co-financing by the public and the private sectors: it is healthy to encourage convergence of private actors with policy goals set by public authorities on these collective issues. Allow me here to turn to some great economists of the last century to shed some light on these transformations. One of them is Joseph Schumpeter and his creative destruction, and the decisive role of private innovation. But we shouldn’t forget Karl Polanyi and his “Great transformation”, written in Britain and published in 1944. Polanyi warned of the dangers of changing a “Market Economy” into a “Market society”, and hence of purely self-regulated markets forgetting about social and political institutions. We might say that his ideas are the structural side of what Keynes wrote on cyclical policies. To succeed in the face of the challenges of both the modern economy and democratic discontent, we will need to reconcile the ideas of these three great thinkers. Page 6 sur 9 II. 20 years ahead: our two great transformations, ecological and digital 1/ I will start with the digital revolution, where Europe is still lagging behind the United States and China. Compared to the United States, we spend less on R&D, have fewer researchers and have filed fewer patents, particularly in biotechnology and in information and communication technologies.