Global economy is stuck in a holding pattern

21 Oct 2014

In the past few years the global economy has lacked a positive dynamic, exemplified by the uneasy combination of plenty of technological opportunities, slow investment growth—which is exacerbated by lackluster business and consumer confidence—weak productivity, and a range of lingering policy and business challenges. This puts the global economy in a holding pattern in which positive and negative forces offset each other, at least for the immediate future.

This characterization of the global economy is unlikely to change in the next 12 to 24 months. After adjusting our outlook for China’s overstated official growth rate, we project a very modest improvement in the growth rate for the global economy to 2.8 percent in 2016, up from 2.5 percent in 2015.