Global growth avoiding ‘stall speed’

In its June 2016 Secular Outlook meeting, US fund manager Pimco said that in the post-GFC economy, growth is “just fast enough to avoid stall speed”.

The current state of affairs is likely to continue, according to Pimco, given there is “no evident or prospective source of productivity or organic demand that would support a baseline for more robust expansion”.

“Deflation has been avoided and output gaps in many major economies are closing, but few if any major central banks today are even hitting their 2 per cent inflation targets, let alone overshooting them,” the firm said.

Pimco said the global economy has “plodded along” and avoided a recession since 2009, with the system only averting collapse because of zero or negative interest policy rates in many countries and the “gusher of liquidity” provided by central bank quantitative easing programs.

“One plausible scenario, and indeed this remains the Pimco baseline case, is that a version of this status quo simply continues and evolves gradually for the next three to five years,” it said.

[Related: US economy is no ‘locomotive’]