In normal circumstances, this gap would be a serious drag on global macroeconomic performance. However, we are not living in normal times. Since the Lehman default, intense QE-Quantitative Easing interventions by central banks have pushed interest rates to rock bottom levels, flooding financial markets with abundant liquidity and forcing traditional fixed income investors to look for decent yields in alternative asset classes. As a consequence, infrastructure has progressively become an interesting option, attracting bigger flows of funds from long term investors. This is a trend that has gained momentum in the last 5 years, and yet was almost inexistent when the first edition of the book was launched in the mid-2000s.

在正常情况下，这一差距将严重拖累全球宏观经济表现。然而，我们不是生活在正常的时代。自雷曼兄弟违约以来，各国央行密集的量化宽松干预措施已将利率推至最低水平，令金融市场充斥着充裕的流动性，并迫使传统的固定收益投资者在另类资产类别中寻找体面的收益率。因此，基础设施已逐渐成为一个有趣的选择，吸引了更多的资金从长期投资者。这一趋势在过去5年中势头强劲，但在本书第一版于2000年代中期推出时几乎不存在。