The world economy is nowhere near a return to pre-COVID growth rates and is under the continual threat that a major financial crisis can rapidly upend whatever limited expansion there may be. That is the situation laid out in the World Economic Outlook (WEO) report of the International Monetary Fund released yesterday.
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, second from left, director of research at the International Monetary Fund, speaks at a news conference on the IMF’s world economic outlook during the 2022 annual meeting of the IMF and the World Bank Group, Tuesday, October 11, 2022, in Washington. [AP Photo/Patrick Semansky]
In his blog post on the report, IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas started by trying to put the best face on a worsening situation. The global economy’s “gradual recovery” from the pandemic and the effects of the Ukraine war was “on track,” supply chain disruptions were…
