This notion of “secular stagnation” has the origin in a question by Alvin Hansen, an American economist, about 80 years ago. The question was whether there would be sufficient investment demand to sustain future economic growth given excess capacity and the lack of good investment opportunities at the end of the Great Depression. With investment deficit and hence excess savings, there would be a persistent decline in the economy’s equilibrium real rate of return, which is an important characterization of secular stagnation. Today, Summers (2013) sees limited investment and the slow overall growth in the U.S. as relevant for the new normal of secular stagnation.