Economic forecast from The Economist

Source: The Economist

"The IMF has cut its forecasts for economic growth in its twice-yearly World Economic Outlook. It expects world GDP to increase by 4% in 2011 and 2012, some 0.3 and 0.5 percentage points lower than previously expected in its June interim forecast. Divergence in growth between the rich and developing economies is expected to become increasingly marked. The predicted output for the 34 advanced economies that account for 52% of the world’s GDP was reduced by 0.6 percentage points to 1.6% for 2011 and by 0.7 points to 1.9% in 2012. Meanwhile, the fund expects the 150 emerging and developing economies to grow by 6.4% in 2011 and by 6.1% in 2012, just 0.2 and 0.3 points lower than in its June forecast."

Economists forecasting models tend to be for "white swans" and the economists tend to be surprised by "black swans", as are all but good statisticians and pessimists. 


If the forecasts are nearly right, next year might be remarked as the time when the 34 advanced economies no longer produced more than half of the world goods and services. Of course, since these countries have far less than half the world's population, their people will generally have more than people in the rest of the world.