This week America’s corporate world passed a milestone. The value of deals in US-bound mergers and acquisitions amounted to $243bn in May, according to Dealogic — a monthly record. The previous monthly peaks were in May 2007 and January 2000, when deals worth respectively $226bn and $213bn were struck.

Meanwhile, so far this year, $1.85tn deals have been done globally; if this continues 2015’s total could top the annual record of $4.6tn deals s in 2007.

What should policy makers and investors conclude? If you want to be optimistic, you might see this as a welcome return of animal spirits. In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, corporate executives were so scarred — and scared — that their priority was to cut corporate debt and costs. But now the C-suite feels more ambitious. And what is particularly striking is that the current M&A frenzy is affecting not just one industry, as during the tech boom, but a wide range, including retail, oil, pharma and tech.