Keynote Speech: The DM and the Future of the Euro

Abstract

One of the trivial statements, purported facts, from perusing the Press,that sticks in my mind is that, if you assume the continuation of present trends in mortality, then the expectation of life of every white American baby girl born after the year 2000 AD will be over 100 years. We used to worry what people would do to fill up their added life span. In the case of American women, Alexander Graham Bell’s useful invention resolved that problem, just as Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Sports relieves all such worries for British men.

Be that as it may, the choice between work and leisure is little understood, perhaps little studied, by economists. Large segments of society, including our own academic community, are working harder and more hours now than we would have done 20 or 40 years ago, and that is so despite an income level that is much higher in real terms, even if we academics are racing down the comparative income ladder with a speed reminiscent of the clergy’s relative decline in the previous century.