There have been four troughs in global economic activity over the past 50 years – 1975, 1982, 1991, and 2009 – where we saw declines in world real GDP per capita.3 Three of these troughs were linked to oil price increases and the policy responses to them (1975, 1982, and 1991). The other was caused by the Global Financial Crisis (2009).
Several sources of uncertainty currently exist in the global economy including: The outlook for growth in Europe and the extent to which consumer and business confidence might be affected by issues such as Brexit negotiations, migration, upcoming elections in large European countries, the Greek debt negotiations and concerns regarding the vulnerability of some European banks.