Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

An I bond is now at 4.28 percent. Are they still a good deal?

Use these 6 points to say no to a college you and your kid can’t afford

How this new rule protects retirement savers from costly advice

The Capitals, a team in transition, know what they want this offseason

Is Pastis as good as our food critic thought? He sent spies to find out.

Nationals can’t solve Nate Eovaldi, drop series finale to Rangers

Trump Media auditor charged by SEC with ‘massive fraud’

Biden honors distinguished Americans; Trump back in N.Y. court

Google’s empire is massive. A judge will soon rule if it’s a monopoly.

On Press Freedom Day, little to celebrate for Hong Kong’s journalists

Young Georgians want to be part of Europe. Their government is in the way.

Taxes are inevitable. Paying to prepare them doesn’t have to be.

Hope Hicks witnessed nearly every Trump scandal. Now she must testify.

State laws measure if a woman is close enough to death for an abortion

Ask Amy: Should I be the best man if I think the bride is abusive?

Carolyn Hax: Husband keeps pushing modest spouse to wear sexier clothes

Miss Manners: Host eats luxurious breakfast, leaves cereal for guest

Journalism in India is under assault

The dangerous new call for regime change in Beijing

Ukrainian men abroad voice anger over pressure to return home to fight 

Teen grabs wheel when driver passes out and school bus veers into traffic

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

Brave Little Hunter is free: Baby orca escapes lagoon for open seas

The New York Times, alone in its outrage over access to Biden

Wait, what is Stephen A. Smith talking about? Find out with our quiz.

Stephen A. Smith would like even more of your attention

Israel’s offensive is destroying Gaza’s ability to grow its own food

Riot police and over 2,000 arrests: A look at 2 weeks of campus protests

‘It’s been abused’ Rep. McCaul on motion to vacate threat

What’s the best bus to New York? We tested 5 for comfort and value.

You asked: Do I need a passport for my cruise?

Adaptive equipment is making national parks more inclusive

Mandel Ngan

Two wars, higher interest rates and the lingering effects of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">coronavirus</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/13/united-nations-poor-countries-pandemic/" target=_blank>pandemic</a> have done little to slow the global economy, but that may be about to change, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The fund’s new forecast calls for global growth of 3.2 percent this year and next, virtually unchanged from its <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/01/30/imf-report-global-economy/" target=_blank>January assessment</a>. Central banks in the United States, Europe and key emerging markets are making progress corralling <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/12/inflation-chocolate-prices-grocery-cost/" target=_blank>inflation</a>, though the fund warned that the fight against rising prices is not yet won.

While positive, the outlook is cause for only muted celebration.

This year’s anticipated growth falls short of the pre-pandemic annual average of 3.8 percent and reflects an uneven global picture, with the United States posting a better-than-expected result while Europe languishes and the world’s poorest nations fall further behind.

Rising geopolitical risks, including signs of a global trading system dividing into separate blocs oriented around the United States and China, are also troubling fund officials. If that split widens, nations could suffer “large output losses” as goods and capital move around the world less efficiently, the fund warned in its flagship World Economic Outlook.

Unless policy reforms or new technologies emerge, annual global growth rates will slip over the remainder of this decade, the fund said in a detailed assessment of “medium-term” growth prospects.

By 2030, the global economy could be expanding at an anemic 2.8 percent annual rate, which the fund called “historically weak.” Slower growth would disappoint expectations of rising living standards and further progress in anti-poverty efforts.

Officials said chronic weakness in the global economy’s performance since the 2008 financial crisis raises concerns that growth will struggle to accelerate beyond today’s middling pace.

Growth has lagged because of a productivity slump in both advanced and developing economies. The supply of labor has expanded more slowly as societies have aged, while business investment has ebbed, the fund said.

The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/01/28/global-economy-gdp-inflation/" target=_blank>United States</a> is an exception to the global trend, with its companies proving more adept at deploying workers and capital in more-efficient ways, the fund said.

The IMF’s economic forecasts and the global economy’s actual growth rates have steadily ratcheted lower over the past decade and a half.

In a speech last week, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/02/01/kristalina-georgieva-imf-fed-rates/" target=_blank>Kristalina Georgieva</a>, the fund’s managing director, warned that the global economy is headed for “a sluggish and disappointing decade,” which she dubbed the “Tepid Twenties.”

Still, the current situation is better than what the fund anticipated six months ago. At that point, fund economists worried that the higher interest rates needed to fight inflation would send unemployment soaring.

But that hasn’t happened. If current trends continue as expected, central banks including the Federal Reserve should be in position to begin lowering interest rates later this year.

“Despite many gloomy predictions, the global economy has held steady, and inflation has been returning to target,” said <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/About/senior-officials/Bios/pierre-olivier-gourinchas" target=_blank>Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas</a>, the fund’s chief economist, who briefed reporters on the outlook.

The report was released on the eve of the annual spring meetings of the IMF and its sister organization, the World Bank. Central bankers and finance ministers from around the world will gather in Washington this week to discuss the inflation outlook, global debt and prospects for reform of financial aid for developing countries.

This year, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/18/china-imports-trade-cars-electronics/" target=_blank>China</a> is likely to fall short of last year’s 5.2 percent growth, as a lingering property crisis weighs on the economy, according to the fund. And <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/02/23/sanctions-treasury-russia-economy/" target=_blank>Russia</a>, having shrugged off U.S. and allied financial sanctions imposed in response to its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, will grow at an annual rate of 3.2 percent.

That’s faster than the United States, Europe, Britain and Japan.

The fund coupled its praise of the United States, which it says will grow this year at an annual rate of 2.7 percent, with a warning that its government spending is “out of line with what is needed for long-term fiscal stability.” Last year’s $1.7 trillion U.S. federal budget deficit was up from about $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2022. All that red ink risks adding to inflation and damaging global financial stability in the long run, by raising borrowing costs for governments around the world, the fund said.

Officials repeated their call for governments that spent freely during the pandemic to rebuild their financial cushions to guard against future shocks.

Nieman fellowship at Harvard University, 2002

National Press Foundation's Hinrich Award for Distinguished Reporting on Trade, 2021

When The Luck of The Irish Ran Out: The World's Most Resilient Country and Its Struggle To Rise Again

Yale University, MA in international relations, 1983

Wesleyan University, BA in government, 1981

David J. Lynch is a staff writer on the financial desk who joined The Washington Post in November 2017 after working for the Financial Times, Bloomberg News and USA Today.

David J. Lynch

washpost

Global economy is growing, but may be headed for trouble, IMF says

the-washington-post

US-IMF-WB-ECONOMY-MEETINGS

Contributor

AFP/Getty Images

name

prism://prism.query/site,/business/economy&limit=20

Economy

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/business&limit=20

Get a curated selection of 10 of our best stories in your inbox every weekend.

Business

The source for business news and analysis. Covering economic policy, business policy, financial news, economic issues, stock market data, local business, technology and more.