World Economy Review - June 2017
RTS Index
In its latest economic outlook, the Organization for Economic and Cooperation Development (OECD) projected accelerated global growth for the 2017-2018 period, saying "greater efforts are needed to ensure that the benefits from growth and globalization are more widely shared."
Updating its last estimate issued on March, the Paris-based think-tank saw global growth in 2017 at 3.5 percent, up by 0.2 percentage. The figure was set to accelerate to 3.6 percent in 2018 due to "stronger business and consumer confidence, rising industrial production and recovering employment and trade flow."
"Among the major advanced economies, the recovery will continue in the United States," the organization estimated.
However, it revised down its gross domestic product (GDP) forecast this year to 2.1 percent this year and 2.4 percent next year from previous estimates of 2.4 percent and 2.8 percent respectively.
The organization report showed a steady outlook for the euro area at 1.8 percent over the period while that of Japan would increase to 1.4 percent this year before slowing to 1.0 percent in 2018.
In China, growth is expected to slow to 6.6 percent in 2017 and 6.4 percent the following year in 2018, according to the OECD data.
"After five years of weak growth, there are signs of improvement. The modest cyclical expansion underway will not, however, be sufficient to sustain strong gains in standards of living across OECD countries," said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria.
Gurria recommended "deeper, sustained and collective commitmen...
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.