2014 Economic Outlook

We expect a modest strengthening of global growth over the next two years relative to 2013 and 2014, largely originating from the advanced economies, and the U.S. in particular. Growth in the emerging economies as a whole will increase somewhat in 2015 and 2016 relative to 2014, but progress will be constrained by a further projected slowdown in China. Even though this outlook shows much the same growth dynamics as before, it embeds a slightly more pessimistic view of growth prospects in the short term. Indeed, global growth remains lower than in our spring outlook all the way to 2016 in spite of projected lower oil prices.

Section I presents recent world economy dynamics and the global outlook for 2014-2016, including prospects for Canada. Section II outlines a base-case scenario for global growth over 2017-2020. Our purpose is twofold: to draw attention to factors or developments that are likely to shape growth prospects beyond the short-term horizon and to give an