And the recent global financial crisis has been a reminder that this can have dramatic consequences on the stability of the international financial system and that national policies do not suffice in preventing such imbalances from occurring.
And according to the Commerce Department’s latest estimate, through the first three quarters of this year the economy has grown a little more than 3 percent at an annual rate, compared with an average increase in GDP of about 5-1/2 percent during the first four quarters following previous business-cycle troughs. Only in 1991-92 was the increase in GDP slower than in the current recovery.