3 1 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches like adenauer, you also stood unwaveringly for european unity, shepherding the european construction through incredibly testing times. the reconciliation between france and germany after the war was profoundly influenced by the friendship between adenauer and charles de gaulle. it reignited the relationship between their two countries, which they deepened by signing the elysee treaty in 1963. they prepared the ground for the advances in european integration that followed. likewise, you strove to position germany as a reliable and stable partner in europe, anchoring the union through crises that could have otherwise torn us apart. you knew that the futures of germany and europe were inseparable, and that a strong and united europe was the best way to secure your country's prosperity. you succeeded, despite the major challenges that arose along the way. but, angela, you are also you. unique, incomparable, inimitable. i believe the success you have achieved in your remarkable career is down to three of your attributes. first, you have a sense of curiosity and a demand for rigour that help you understand and find solutions to the most complex problems. this is what i call angela " the scientist ". second, you have the humility to seek consensus when others may be held back by ego, and the finesse to bring people to an agreement. this is angela " the pragmatist ". third, you have the inner strength and conviction to defend your most deeply held values when they are most at risk. this is angela " the moral force ". so let me explore these three qualities in more detail. the scientist you have spoken about the challenges of growing up behind the iron curtain, yet it instilled in you qualities that – seen from the outside – have been indispensable to your success. as information was strictly controlled, you developed your own sense of curiosity, seeking out everything you wanted to learn, including what the socialist regime did not want to teach you. and because openly speaking your mind was dangerous – something you understood early on – you learned to be judicious, developing a strong sense of self - reliance. you once told me that you would learn the most important information by heart – so as to leave no trace for the stasi. you then chose to study physics, which gave you a way to remain true to yourself, even under dictatorship. " even under honecker, two times two had to be four,

by the growth rate. when labor productivity was growing at 3 - 1 / 4 percent per year — during the 25 years from 1948 to 1973 — it took 22 years for labor productivity to double. looking again at figure 1, in the 42 years from 1974 to 2016, when labor productivity was growing on average at a rate of 1 - 3 / 4 percent, it would have taken approximately 41 years for labor productivity to double. there is a vast difference between the prospects facing the young in an economy where incomes per capita are doubling every 22 years and an economy in which incomes are on average doubling only every 41 years. now, productivity statistics are imperfect in many respects — for example, capturing the value of the seemingly free apps we use on our smartphones is challenging. and many of us who live in the modern age cannot believe that the iphone has not fundamentally changed our lives. it has certainly changed our lives to some extent, and there is likely some underestimation of productivity growth in the official data. but to figure out whether the current degree of data bias has reduced estimated growth, we have to ask not whether there is bias, but whether the bias has increased. to a first approximation, one could assume that the rate of bias is constant, and does not account for the estimated decline in productivity growth and that we should not dismiss the slowdown as an artifact of measurement difficulties. 2 that is the conclusion most researchers reach, but the data issue is not settled. as bob solow famously said, just before the increase in productivity growth of 1996 – 2003, “ the computer is everywhere except in the growth data. ” and there are serious researchers who have made serious arguments that we will soon be seeing more rapid growth in the productivity data. factors determining productivity growth clearly, a key question for economic forecasters, and even more so for u. s. citizens, and indeed for the entire global economy, is whether we should anticipate a return of the more rapid productivity gains experienced in the it boom and for the quarter century after the end of world war ii, or should instead resign ourselves to tepid economic growth in future years. and a central policy issue is whether government policies can help push the economy toward a higherproductivity regime. in this context, it is useful to think of labor productivity growth as coming from three sources, as shown in figure 2. first, greater investment by firms in tangible equipment and structures, as well as “ intangible ” investments such