"Global recessions"

Source: The Economist

"Before this year the world economy had been in recession on four occasions in the past half century, if recession is defined as a drop in output per person. An analysis in the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook shows that, when exchange-rates are measured using purchasing-power parity, world output dipped sufficiently to drag down average output per person in 1975, 1982 and 1991. But on virtually every measure, this year’s downturn is much deeper than previous troughs. Global output per head is set to fall by 2.5% this year, compared with an average of 0.4% in the previous global recessions. Global trade is set to shrink by almost 12%. In previous global recessions trade merely stagnated."