The vulnerability of the American economy along with corporate scandals, political tensions derived from the Iraq conflict, and the loss of the economy’s dynamism, have weakened consumer confidence.
In sum, we can highlight a series of issues that are contributing to making the recovery of the world economy much more uncertain: •  The deepening of the pessimism of economic agents motivated mainly by the Iraq war;  •  The possibility of new terrorist attacks;  •  Uncertainty about the oil price level and volatility;  •  An increase of risk aversion in the international financial markets.