The World Economy: news, statistics, articles

Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a think tank funded by wealthy countries, cut its 2016 global growth forecast to 3 per cent in its interim economic outlook, from the 3.3 percent it forecast in November. The OECD poured cold water on any lingering hopes of a pick-up in global economic growth this year, slashing its forecasts for the United States, Europe and Brazil and urging world leaders to act collectively to strengthen demand. The OECD forecast would mean global growth this year would be no higher than in 2015, itself the slowest pace in the past five years. Trade, investment and wage growth remained too weak, the OECD said, urging world leaders to deploy all policy levers to stimulate growth urgently. "Monetary policy cannot work alone," it said. "A stronger collective policy response is needed to strengthen demand," it added, urging countries with room for fiscal expansion to raise public investment in infrastructure projects.

The US and Germany suffered the biggest downgrades among major developed economies, with the OECD slashing its 2016 forecast by half a percentage point for both countries to 2.0 percent and 1.3 percent respectively. The OECD now expects US and euro zone growth to slow from the previous year, to 1.4 per cent for the latter, and to pick up only marginally in 2017 to 2.2 percent and 1.7 percent respectively. The OECD left its forecasts for Chinese growth unchanged for the next two years, but it still expects growth to slow to 6.5 percent in 2016 and 6.... The world economy can be evaluated in various ways, depending on the model used, and this valuation can then be represented in various ways (for example, in 2006 US dollars). It is inseparable from the geography and ecology of Earth, and is therefore somewhat of a misnomer, since, while definitions and representations of the "world economy" vary widely, they must at a minimum exclude any consideration of resources or value based outside of the Earth. For example, while attempts could be made to calculate the value of currently unexploited mining opportunities in unclaimed territory in Antarctica, the same opportunities on Mars would not be considered a part of the world economy - even if currently exploited in some way - and could be considered of latent value only in the same way as uncreated intellectual property, such as a previously unconceived invention. Beyond the minimum standard of concerning value in production, use, and exchange on the planet Earth, definitions, representations, models, and valuations of the world economy vary widely.

It is common to limit questions of the world economy exclusively to Human economic activity, and the world economy is typically judged in monetary terms, even in cases in which there is no efficient market to help valuate certain goods or services, or in cases in which a lack of independent research or government cooperation makes establishing figures difficult. Typical examples are illegal drugs and prostitution, which by any standard are a part of the world economy, but for which there is by definition no legal market of any kind.