Foreword

As Larry Elliott puts it in his article from “The Guardian”, the 10th anniversary of the worst downturn since the Great Depression finds the global economy at risk of a fresh crisis and ill-prepared for the disruption likely from the robot age, the World Economic Forum has warned. The body that organises the annual gathering of the global elite in Davos each January used its annual league table of competitiveness to stress that the failure to push through growth and productivity-friendly policies since the crash of 2007-08 had jeopardised chances of a sustained recovery. WEF sources said recent Bank of England concerns about a potential consumer debt crisis were timely since there was evidence that the global banking system was less sound than before the financial crisis and that conditions were deteriorating in some parts of the world. In august 2017, the International Monetary Fund warned of a “dangerous” growth in China's debt.