Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung im Ausland: Moderate Expansion der Weltwirtschaft
Expansion of the global economy has slowed down during the first half of 2014. In many countries special factors have been the driving force. Output grew only at a slower rate in emerging countries and it lost momentum in advanced economies. Geopolitical conflicts that have emerged or exacerbated in 2014 have not yet considerably influenced economic dynamics. On the contrary, in many countries stock prices are almost quoting at former highs. In addition, prices of commodities such as crude oil or gold have not substantially risen like they did during previous times of uncertainty. The price of oil has even decreased in the last few months. We expect most of the special factors that have prevailed in the first half of this year to subside so that cyclical dynamics will predominate during the remainder of the year. We thus expect economic dynamics in the industrialized economies to accelerate in the second half of this year. In contrast, output in emerging countries is likely to further slow down. If current geopolitical crises do not deteriorate, the expansion of the global economy should gradually accelerate, leading to a moderately paced upswing. We expect world output to grow by 3.3 percent this year and by 3.8 percent next year. This will lead to an increase of international trade in goods by 3.3% in 2014 and 5.3% in 2015.
Schmidt, T., R. Döhrn, P. Jäger, P. An de Meulen, D. Grozea-Helmenstein, S. Rujin and L. Zwick (2014), Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung im Ausland: Moderate Expansion der Weltwirtschaft. RWI Konjunkturberichte, 65, 3, 5-38