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Is the world on the brink of another global recession?

October 13, 2022

The global economy's 2023 outlook is ... bleak. Why? Ayhan Kose, the World Bank’s chief economist for Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions, says that unlike the 2009 and 2020 global recessions, next year's likely slowdown in economic activity — coupled with growing inflation — could be more like the one of 1982, which also came with a string of debt crises.

And with growing food insecurity and climate change challenges ahead, for emerging markets and low-income countries, “things are going to get worse before they get better,” Kose says. “That’s why the global community has to show willingness, consensus, and at the same time, financing, to address these problems.”

Kose spoke with Shari Friedman, Eurasia Group's Managing Director, Climate and Sustainability in a Global Stage interview on site at the World Bank/IMF fall meetings in Washington, DC.

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Three-fifths of the world's lowest income countries are debt distressed and in danger of default. Navid Hanif, assistant secretary-general for economic development at the United Nations, tells GZERO's Tony Maciulis that we need to make debt more sustainable by restructuring it and that multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank, should offer affordable longer-term loans with lower interest rates to allow least developed countries better opportunities to deal with crises like climate change, poverty, and educating children.

The world "is more coupled than we think"

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AI at the tipping point: danger to information, promise for creativity

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World faces "lost decade" of economic growth, says World Bank economist

The World Bank predicts that the global economy now faces a decade of lost growth, in part due to an older workforce and lower productivity. Is the way out of the looming doldrums to have a young population like Nigeria? Yes, but those countries will need help from wealthy nations to invest in things like education to reap the benefits of their demographic dividend, World Bank deputy chief economist Ayhan Kose tells GZERO's Tony Maciulis at the World Bank/IMF spring meetings in Washington, DC.

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Ian Bremmer: The West is united on Russian energy, the rest of the world is not

With talk at this year’s Munich Security Conference from most of the world’s most powerful countries about decoupling from Russian energy, it can be easy to forget that most of the world’s population has other priorities. “What we're seeing is that a majority of the world's economic strength and certainly military strength really wants to put Russia back in a box, but a majority of the world's population does not,” said Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer during a Global Stage livestream conversation.

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