The World Economy Just Can’t Escape Its Low-Growth, Low-Inflation Rut

The story is even more pessimistic in the European Union, where interest rates are slightly below zero and yet growth is faltering.

With the world economy heavily reliant on stimulus to achieve even meager growth, there is little cushion for a negative shock. In particular, it makes the United States more vulnerable to recession caused by any number of factors, including government shutdowns and trade wars.

Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said, “If this is what growth and investment look like when there is relatively loose monetary and fiscal policy — especially in the U.S. — the underlying strength just isn’t there.

“That doesn’t mean policy is ineffective or ill-advised. Things would be much worse, unnecessarily, if policy tightened a lot. But it is scary to think of the world economy absent macro support,” meaning the stimulus provided by low interest rates and large deficits.

There is the risk of a nasty feedback loop. The low-growth trap of the last decade — and the resulting stagnant incomes — might have contributed to dysfunctional politics in nations including Britain, Italy and the United States. Those dysfunctional politics in turn can create new risks of economic disruption, as we saw in the recent shutdown standoff in Washington.

Last year began with signs of a new economic era. In early February, the stock market was falling amid concerns that the United States economy was overheating; that wages and prices would start rising too fast; and that the Fed would need to raise interest rates faster to rein things in. Shifts in bond markets suggested investors were betting on higher future inflation, and on higher interest rates in the distant future than in the near future.

For the first time in ages, most of the major advanced and emerging economies were enjoying simultaneous growth surges. As 2018 progressed, inflation in the United States finally moved back up to the 2 percent level that the Federal Reserve targets, and the Fed’s pattern of once-a-quarter rate increases became mostly a nonevent in markets.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/27/upshot/world-economy-low-growth-low-interest-deflation.html?partner=rss&emc=rss