What was considered a remote risk is now becoming reality for several major economies around the world. While we still do not anticipate a global recession, a global slowdown is certainly underway as Europe and the United States are descending into recessions and China continues to experience weaker growth.

There are myriad pathways to recession for the global economy and for individual major economies. In this issue, we enumerate the risks to our base case projections with bands of uncertainty. The occurrence of one extreme event, or even a combination of several smaller unfavorable events, could thrust the world back into recession over the next 18 months.