Be bold, Mario

摘要

Central bankers from around the world gather this week in the foothills of the Teton mountains to hike trails and share gossip and ideas. It is an apposite time to swap notes: the rich world's economies have taken divergent paths and the bankers at Jackson Hole have much to learn from one another about which policies work best. In America and Britain, output and employment have surpassed their pre-crisis peaks and are growing solidly. But the picture in the rich world's other two big economies is darker. In the second quarter Japanese output shrank sharply, largely because consumers had accelerated purchases in the first quarter in order to avoid a consumption-tax rise. The euro zone's woes are harder to dismiss: second-quarter output was flat, and it remains no higher than it was in 2011.