as much as 23 percentage points higher. adjusting the retirement age to rising life expectancy is a controversial, but effective measure to increase older workers ’ labour force participation and thus counteract demographic change. immigration can also help to dampen or delay the demographic decline of the workforce. for instance, immigration to germany contributed an average of around 0. 2 percentage point to 5 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches growth between 2001 and 2017. however, the contribution that immigration can make to cushioning the impact of an ageing population on the labour market hinges on whether immigrants can be integrated into the labour market and what professional qualifications the immigrants bring with them. in any case, a systematic approach for labour - market - oriented immigration would make sense. all these measures target the number of hours worked as a means of dampening the harmful effects of demographic patterns on growth. a complementary approach would be to increase the productivity of those persons who will generate income in the future and will therefore need to support an increasing number of elderly dependents. economic policies that promote innovation and competition and lower market entry barriers and obstacles to innovation as well as an efficient public administration can make valuable contributions to higher productivity growth. the education system also has a key role to play. much of the groundwork for later academic achievement is laid in the early years of childhood. it therefore makes sense to focus more on early - years and pre - school education. in schools, academic success must become less dependent on social background, for instance by ensuring good all - day school facilities are available for all. that would make it easier to prepare children and young people whose parents have little interest in education for their future working life. and, most importantly, we must establish a culture of lifelong learning. that would help ensure that people experience the changing requirements of the labour market more as an opportunity and that they could look with greater confidence towards a longer working life. incidentally, lifelong learning reduces the mismatch between existing and needed qualifications, in turn contributing to greater productivity. in any case, the days when employees over 50 were considered as difficult to place on the labour market must be a thing of the past. efficient education and training systems are equally indispensable in dealing successfully with a phenomenon which could cause quite significant changes to working life and growth : digitalisation. digitalisation can help raise productivity growth. however, it is unclear how large this contribution might be. digitalisation will eliminate some jobs, while creating others. on the one hand, digital

economic integration in recent years and decades, thus raising welfare and growth. the multilateral framework has therefore served the global economy well, and we should strengthen, improve and expand it. the agreement that has now been reached between the united states and the eu is therefore ambivalent : it avoids an open conflict between the world ’ s two largest economic areas, which account for a large percentage of global trade flows. nonetheless, this is no victory for international free trade, as punitive tariffs remain in place for other countries which were unable to secure preferential treatment for themselves, and even the eu is, to date, only temporarily exempted. the objective must therefore be not only to prevent new barriers to trade or keep them as low as possible, but also to eliminate existing barriers. i very much hope that recent signals from the united states that it is willing to talk about eliminating barriers do not prove to be a false hope, but that they herald a new outlook. 5. conclusion at the beginning of my speech, i mentioned cordoba. hans krankl, who 40 years ago scored the winning goal for austria, moved to fc barcelona following the fifa world cup, where he went on to become spain ’ s top scorer. the transfer fee is reputed to have been 10 million schillings, which works out at around €700, 000. measured in terms of the sums which change hands for international top players nowadays, that is a bargain, but at the time it was a record fee for an austrian player. it is safe to say that prices for football players have risen considerably faster than consumer prices. in fact, in the face of recent developments, some people even go as far as to talk of hyperinflation on the transfer market – an aspect of inflation with which we luckily do not need to concern ourselves. 1 e nowotny ( 1999 ), der offentliche sektor : einfuhrung in die finanzwissenschaft, 4th edition, berlin et al, p 160. 2 see, for example, h berger, g dell ’ ariccia and m obstfeld ( 2018 ), “ revisiting the economic case for fiscal union in the euro area ”, international monetary fund. 3 european commission ( 2017 ), the 2018 ageing report, underlying assumptions and projection methodologies. 4 see deutsche bundesbank, demographic change, immigration and the potential output of the german economy, monthly report, april 2017, pp 35 – 47