Risks to ‘Steady but Slow’ Global Growth

The spring 2024 edition of the IMF’s influential World Economic Outlook (WEO) projects ‘steady but slow’ growth of the world economy over the next two years. But Maurice Obstfeld, widely recognized as among the world’s leading expert in international economics, notes that while the recovery from the pandemic has proved surprisingly resilient, the WEO forecast could be derailed by the buildup of unsustainable debt, rising great-power competition, the adverse effects of accelerating climate change or another pandemic.

 

Maury is a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and Professor of Economics Emeritus at UC Berkeley. He served as a member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, and from 2015 to 2018, as Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund.