those running bigger current-account deficits) and less flexible economic structures. Most of these countries had not sufficiently adapted their institutional frameworks and economic policies to the membership requirements of a monetary union, in which exchange rate devaluation is no longer available to bring about rapid adjustments in competitiveness, and in which the basic parameters of monetary policy have ceased to be set independently by the authorities of each Member State. Having entrusted themselves to the macroeconomic stability provided by monetary union membership and scarcely pressured by markets that remained indifferent, for some time, to the problems being incubated, some of these economies built up significant imbalances, failing to undertake the reforms needed to withstand the shocks that could seriously affect them. The institutional arrangements designed 20 years ago in Maastricht did not have the wherewithal to prevent and, where appropriate, correct this lack of adaptation of national policies to the requirements of a monetary union; and nor did they have the mechanisms to manage the far-reaching and protracted crisis we have experienced. These shortcomings have translated into losses in well-being for the public at large. The impact in terms of output and employment has been enormous. On the projections available, the euro area will not regain the level of GDP existing at the start of 2008 until 2015, at the earliest. And in terms of employment, the gap will take even longer to close. Despite recent positive indicators, the current situation continues to pose challenges of the highest order to both European and national economic authorities.
Beyond 18, at university and college level, student numbers in economics have also been rising rapidly, with the number graduating reaching 9,000 in 2016/17, a rise of over a third in the past six years ago. This has increased the fraction of university-level students taking economics to over 2%, similar to subjects such as politics and accountancy. It is still of course only a tiny 1% of the total population in this age range. If we look in greater detail at just who is taking economics, the selectivity bias is more acute still. At ages 16 to 18, around 22% of economics students are drawn from independent schools, more than double their population averages. At university, around a fifth of economics students are drawn from independent schools. So not only are economics student numbers pretty small, they have a heavy socio-economic slant. 58  The same may well be true of other subjects. 53  National Numeracy (2017) See https://www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk/research-skills-life-survey-2011 Money Advice Service (2017). 56 PSHE Association (2017), Practitioner Survey 57 Perhaps reflecting that, there is strong support among parents for PSHE having statutory status (PHSE Association, Parent Survey). 58 There are also strong gender and ethnicity biases in the study of economics. There are discussed in, for example, Crawford, Davies and Smith (forthcoming), Tenreyro (2017) and Blackaby and Frank (2000). 54 55  14  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  14  Economics also appears to have a heavy regional slant, probably for related reasons.