The new winners and losers in business

WHICH firms have emerged as the winners from the chaos of the past three years? Perhaps the most unusual period for business in a generation began in the spring of 2020, when lockdowns brought parts of production to a standstill. A deep but brief recession was followed by a frantic recovery. Then came inflation. A world economy already in the grip of a high-speed cycle is now experiencing the fastest increase in interest rates since the 1980s. Graham Secker of Morgan Stanley, a bank, argues that the policy response to covid-19 has shocked the economy out of secular stagnation—the slow-growth, low-inflation malaise preceding the pandemic—and marks a new era.