For decades, my research was driven by outstanding problems in macroeconomics: mainly growth theory and employment theory.

Without being aware, I think I was being indoctrinated into what was called Vitalism, the idea that what makes life worth living, the good life, consists of accepting challenges, solving problems, discovery, personal growth, personal change.

The main cause of Europe's deep fall - the losses of inclusion, job satisfaction and wage growth - is the devastating slowdown of productivity that began in the late 1990s and struck large swaths of the continent. It holds down the growth of wages rates, and it depresses employment.

Economists of a classical bent lay a large part of the decline of employment, and thus lagging output, to a contraction of labour supply.

The fallacy of the neoclassicals is their tenet that total employment, though hit by shocks, can be said always to be heading back to some normal level.

The Keynesian belief that 'demand' is always at the root of underemployment and slow growth is a fallacy.