The world economy is heading into troubled waters, with recession in 2020 now a clear and present danger, according to UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Report 2019. Warning lights are flashing around trade tensions, currency movements, corporate debt, a no-deal Brexit and inverted yield curves but there is little sign that policy makers are prepared for the storm ahead. The report calls for a focus on boosting jobs, wages and public investment to replace policymakers’ obsession with stock prices, quarterly earnings and investor confidence. Even ignoring the worst of the downside risks, the report projects global growth to fall to 2.3% in 2019, compared with 3% in 2018. But several big emerging economies are already in recession and some advanced economies (including Germany and the United Kingdom) are dangerously close.
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