William De Vijlder

Australia has seen 27 years without a recession and IMF and OECD forecasts show ongoing growth in coming years. Population growth, productivity growth, commodity exports to China and other fast growing Asian economies have played an important role together with policy aimed at enhancing economic flexibility. The floating exchange rate has been an important countercyclical and hence stabilising factor. The housing boom has become a source of concern from a financial stability perspective with recent prudential measures allowing for a “positive correction”.

Sentiment indicators continue their softening trend and the flash estimate points towards weak third quarter GDP growth. Yet drivers of final demand continue to point towards ongoing good growth in the upcoming quarters. Data in the coming weeks as well as developments concerning Brexit and US trade policy will be key to confirm or tune down this assessment.

People update their expectations more quickly when media coverage of a given economic topic becomes more intense. The change in the outlook is more important than today’s cyclical environment. Monitoring media coverage of economic slowdown risk will become particularly relevant against the background of a loss of momentum in survey data.

The ECB is still confident. That is the message from Mario Draghi’s press conference following the Governing Council meeting.

Growth has eased during the course of this year with the US being the major exception largely thanks to fiscal stimulus. The ensuing cyclical desynchronization has caused a broad-based appreciation of the US dollar, in particular versus emerging currencies. In some cases (Argentina, Turkey), the depreciation has been considerable due to country-specific developments. Global growth should continue to ease further next year and lead to a certain resynchronization: the impact of the US fiscal boost will wane, Fed tightening should start to have an effect and corporate investment is expected to slow, which in turn should weigh on world trade growth. Even in the absence of additional tariff increases, fears of more tit-for-tat measures could sap business confidence.

Strong fundamentals should continue to support US growth. However, companies are becoming increasingly concerned about the impact of trade measures.

Ten years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, assessing to what extent major economies have fully recovered from the ensuing global financial crisis and the Great Recession very much depends on the perspective which is chosen. A mixed picture emerges: in most countries per capita real GDP is higher than before the crisis. But public sector debt hasn’t declined and growth has been slow, despite the expansionary policy stance. Policy rates are still (very) low and central bank balance sheets are vastly bigger. Policy leeway hasn’t been restored which implies that thinking about how to address the next downturn should be high on the agenda.