Global Economic Outlook 2020: Stagnating Growth amid an Uncertain Outlook

Global Economy: Growth takes a hit, but the risk of a downturn will be contained

The global economy took a bigger hit in 2019 than anticipated, slowing to 2.3 percent in 2019, down from 3.3 percent in 2017 and 3.0 percent in 2018. The slowdown is disconcerting because over the past two decades, a dip in global growth below 2 percent has often meant recessions in the form of GDP contractions across a broad range of regional economies.¹ Recession fears are currently widespread but appear to be overblown. We expect global growth to remain slow but slightly improve next year, reaching 2.5 percent.

Overall, we have arrived in a world of stagnating growth. While no widespread global recession has occurred in the last decade, global growth has now dropped below its long-term trend of around 2.7 percent. The fact that global GDP growth has not declined even more in recent years is mainly due to solid consumer spending and strong labor markets in most large economies around the world. Of course, current conditions and future challenges differ in regions throughout the world. In this edition of the Global Economic Outlook, we’ve included regional sections for the US, Asia, and Europe that describe the underlying forces that will shape growth in the short and medium term. The overarching theme of this year’s outlook is stagnating growth and stalling globalization and what this means for business.

Recession fears are currently widespread but appear to be overblown.

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AUTHORS

Bart van Ark

Executive Vice President & Global Chief Economist; Program Director, CFO: Fortune 250 Council
The Conference Board

Abdul Erumban

Senior Research Fellow
The Conference Board
Assistant Professor, Economics
University of Groningen

Yuan Gao

Senior Economist
China Center for Economics and Business

Erik Lundh

Senior Economist
The Conference Board

Ilaria Maselli

Senior Economist
The Conference Board

Ataman Ozyildirim, PhD

Director, Economic Research, and Global Research Chair
The Conference Board

Klaas de Vries

Economist
The Conference Board