The World Economy: Moving Sideways

By Maurice Obstfeld

Versions in: عربي (Arabic), 中文 (Chinese), Français (French), 日本語 (Japanese), Русский (Russian), and Español (Spanish)

A return to the strong, sustainable, balanced, and inclusive growth that Group of Twenty leaders called for at Hangzhou in September still eludes us. Global growth remains weak, even though it shows no noticeable deceleration over the last quarter. The new World Economic Outlook sees a slowdown for the group of advanced economies in 2016 and an offsetting pickup for emerging and developing economies. Taken as a whole, the world economy has moved sideways. Without determined policy action to support economic activity over the short and longer terms, sub-par growth at recent levels risks perpetuating itself—through the negative economic and political forces it is unleashing.

G-20: Five Ways to Spark Growth

By iMFdirect

Once again, we face the prospect of weak and fragile global growth. Released earlier this week, the IMF’s update to the global economic outlook expects global growth at 3.1 percent and 3.4 percent in 2016 and 2017, respectively, slightly down from April estimates. The global outlook, which was set for a small upward revision prior to the U.K.’s referendum, has been revised downward, reflecting the increased economic, political, and institutional uncertainty.

In Transition: The Outlook for Latin America and the Caribbean

By Alejandro Werner

Versions in: Português (Portuguese),  Español (Spanish)

Following a rough start at the beginning of the year, both external and domestic conditions in Latin America and the Caribbean have improved. But the outlook for the region is still uncertain.

Commodity prices have recovered since their February 2016 trough, but they are still expected to remain low for the foreseeable future. This has been accompanied by a brake—or even a reversal—in the large exchange rate depreciations in some of the largest economies in the region.

A Spanner in the Works: An Update to the World Economic Outlook

By Maurice Obstfeld

Versions in عربي (Arabic), 中文 (Chinese), Français (French), and Español (Spanish)

The United Kingdom’s June 23 vote to leave the European Union adds downward pressure to the world economy at a time when growth has been slow amid an array of remaining downside risks. The first half of 2016 revealed some promising signs—for example, stronger than expected growth in the euro area and Japan, as well as a partial recovery in commodity prices that helped several emerging and developing economies. As of June 22, we were therefore prepared to upgrade our 2016-17 global growth projections slightly. But Brexit has thrown a spanner in the works.

A Fresh Look at Globalization

By David Lipton

There were a lot of dramatic headlines over the weekend suggesting that Brexit signals the beginning of the end of globalization. Surely, it is too soon to understand all the ramifications of the British referendum. But at the same time, today is surely a good day to make the case for multilateralism. While there are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the future, I will argue that globalization still has promise. But to achieve that promise, we will need a fresh look at multilateralism and the role the international financial institutions can play.