Stephen Poloz’s book calls on business to do what politicians won’t: Save the economy – Financial Post

Technological revolution. An aging population. Growing income inequality. Unprecedented debt levels. Climate change.

As reporter Kevin Carmichael explains in his recent article in the Financial Post, these are the five life-changing “tectonic forces” that Stephen Poloz says will come together to challenge policy-makers in the years ahead. In his new book, The Next Age of Uncertainty: How the World Can Adapt to a Riskier Future, the Osler Special Advisor and former Governor of the Bank of Canada examines the ways these forces will reshape the economy and highlights the role that both economists and business must play to address the accompanying risks.

“When the world changes, economic theory must change with it,” Stephen writes. “Economists who fail to adapt will be wrong, and so will everyone who follows them.”

Further, as Carmichael relates, Stephen believes business has the ability to effect important change and must step up to the plate – particularly in the areas of income inequality and the climate crisis – where politicians have failed to do so.

“I believe the coming tectonic stresses will prove too much for the capacity of existing fiscal and monetary stabilization tools,” Stephen says in his book. “… policy-makers will not be able to absorb all of the increase in risks that the tectonic forces will deliver.”

And that’s where companies and their leaders come in. “The growing importance of ESG in the corporate world represents the failure of politics to deliver the right balance of policies,” he writes. “Investing in ESG is a form of risk management.”

Read Kevin Carmichael’s full article from February 21, 2022, “Stephen Poloz's book calls on business to do what politicians won't: Save the economy,” on the Financial Post website.