World Economy Review - August 2017
Dow Jones Index
The world economy looks well on its way to a year of faster, firmer growth after rising at its most rapid pace in 2 1/2 years in the second quarter.
The expansion is broad based as long-time laggards Japan and the euro area perk up. Even more encouraging: The gains look sustainable because they`re not generating much in the way of inflation or other excesses that frequently presage a downturn, economists said.
Global gross domestic product is projected to increase by 3.4 percent in 2017 and 3.5 percent in 2018, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. While that would be a come down from an estimated 4 percent plus pace in the second quarter, it would still represent a clear acceleration from last year`s 3.1 percent advance.
The pick-up has been paced by budding rebounds in Europe and Japan, two economies that until now had been seen as drags on the global economy.
After years of lackluster growth, the euro-area economy is starting to build momentum. The expansion accelerated to 0.6 percent in the second quarter, and it`s more evenly spread across the 19-nation region than in the past. The Netherlands posted the strongest data in a decade and Italy, long an slouch in the region, may see the best performance since 2010 this year.
That`s good news for European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, who wants to make sure the recovery is well established before reining in stimulus. Inflation is still undershooting the ECB`s goal and there`s little sign of significant wage gains as yet. That`s allowing Draghi to...
The World Economy
World GDP Growth, %
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.