Few analyses of the current downturn fail to mention the increased synchronicity of economic cycles across regions. In April 2001 the UNCTAD Trade and Development Report had argued that without a coordinated global policy response, the slowdown in the United States would produce a synchronous cyclical downturn in the world economy.
In December the IMF World Economic Outlook remarked that a particularly disturbing feature of the current slowdown is its synchronicity across nearly all regions, "the most marked for at least two decades." The WEO attributes this partly to common shocks, (including the sharp oil price increases) and the bursting of the information technology bubble, both of which had a world-wide impact.