Deloitte Monday Briefing: The Not So Global Recession

A personal take on economics from Ian Stewart, Deloitte's Chief Economist in the UK.

• Like most economists we describe the financial chaos of 2008-09 as the Global Financial Crisis. The financial crisis was truly global, but we estimate that about 80% of the world's population escaped the ensuing recession.
• The rich countries of the US, Japan and most European countries fell into recession. Most emerging market economies saw only a brief slowdown in growth in 2009. While growth rates in the last six years in the rich world have been miserable, growth in emerging economies has been running above its trend rate.
• This year the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects the global economy to grow by 3.6%, up from 3.0% last year, with activity expected to accelerate in 2015. This average hides widely varying prospects around the world.