closing high on Tuesday, despite the greater risk that central banks will keep interest rates higher for longer rather than cut them.
The 2023 growth forecast is well behind an International Monetary Fund forecast of 2.7% that was issued in October and is due to be updated next week. The latest Reuters polls of more than 500 economists covering 45 economies were taken Jan. 5-25. Much will depend on how much success the world's major central banks can claim from roughly a year's worth of historically aggressive interest rate hikes that are not over yet. The full impact of rate hikes can take a year or more to show up in economies.
"However ... the range of scenarios ahead is truly broad, and yet the market seems to have settled for a happy median that seems the least likely to transpire."Consensus gross domestic product growth forecasts for 2023 for more than 80% of economies surveyed were downgraded from the October poll.