How likely is a UK recession after Brexit?

• In the wake of the UK Brexit vote, forecasters have rushed to downgrade their growth forecasts for the UK, with some now expecting a recession. Using the Oxford Economics' Global Economic Model, we examine how likely a recession is by looking at the shocks the UK economy faces and the policy responses. We conclude that while a sharp slowdown is likely – in line with our own new forecasts – a recession is unlikely.
• Many UK forecasters are now predicting a recession in 2017, even though ‘stand‐alone’ recessions in industrial countries are rare. Our forecast is less downbeat. The UK faces a series of negative shocks including to consumers and business confidence, but growth will be supported by the weaker sterling and likely policy responses.
• Using the Oxford Economics' Global Economic Model, we show that to shift our baseline forecast of growth of 1.1% next year to zero would require a very severe negative confidence shock. Our new baseline already assumes a shock equivalent to one‐third of that seen in the global financial crisis (GFC). All else being equal, the shock would have to be around two‐thirds of that in the GFC to cut GDP growth to zero in 2017.
• Our new baseline also does not incorporate all the possible policy levers the UK can employ. We currently assume the Bank Rate drops to zero, but if a ‘rescue package’ of £75 billion of QE and a fiscal stimulus equal to 1% of GDP was also added, then the shock to confidence needed to get zero GDP growth would have to be similar to that seen in the GFC. We do not consider this likely given the scale of financial stress and credit restriction that occurred globally at the time of the GFC.

     

Brexit and world growth – what are the risks?

• The initial global market reaction to the UK Brexit vote was very negative and in our view overdone. Nevertheless, we expect the uncertainty to linger for a while, with the vote having refocused investors on existing vulnerabilities in the world economy. Our new forecasts see the main negative impacts on growth being in the UK, the Eurozone and Japan. Risks to our new forecasts remain skewed to the downside, with a significant danger of world growth dropping below 2% this year.
• Our new forecasts see UK growth dropping to 1.4% a year in 2017–18, down from 2.2–2.3% a year before. In the Eurozone, growth will be around 0.2% a year weaker in 2017–18 and Japan is also a loser as a result of the risk aversion‐driven stronger yen, with growth at just 0.3% in 2017 from 0.5%.
• The size of the initial global market sell‐off makes no sense in the context of the likely impact from a weaker UK. In part, it seems to have reflected the pricing in of very negative scenarios in the Eurozone. But investors may also be worrying about other global problems glossed over in recent months.
• One risk to our forecast is that confidence effects on businesses and consumers are larger than we expect – but such effects are often overstated. Another danger is that more of the recent financial market weakness will ‘stick’ than our new baseline forecasts assume.
• Our world recession indicator is already at elevated levels and suggests a significant danger of world growth slipping below 2% this year; not a recession, but it might feel like one. Global policymakers need to act quickly to head off the risks.

     

Business cycle non‐linearities in UK consumption and production

This paper develops non‐linear smooth transition autoregressive (STAR) models with two additive smooth transition components to capture the business cycle characteristics of UK real consumers' expenditure and industrial production. The results indicate consumption has essentially two business cycle regimes: recession and expansion. Industrial production, however, is characterized by the three regimes of recession, normal growth and high growth. The transitions describing recovery from recession are very similar for the two variables. Stochastic simulations illustrate the dynamic responses of these models and emphasize that they are locally linear. Our results also indicate that the two‐transition STAR models have some forecast advantages over other specifications for periods of contraction. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Secular stagnation – are we stuck in Summers' long winter?

• We estimate that the UK has a relatively large output gap of around 2¾% of potential output. With the legacy of the financial crisis fading, the UK should see healthy growth in potential output of around 2.1% a year from 2015–24. Usually this would drive a period of strong economic growth, but we expect GDP growth to average a relatively underwhelming 2.4% a year over this period, largely due to the drag from aggressive fiscal consolidation.
• There is significant disagreement amongst economists about the size of the output gap. Estimation of the output gap has been problematic since the financial crisis because of the depth of the recession and relatively slow pace of the subsequent recovery, while sizeable revisions to the national accounts data have been an added complication. Our estimate of the output gap is towards the top of the range of independent forecasters surveyed by HM Treasury, but it is consistent with the literature on the impact of financial crises on potential output.
• We expect potential output growth of 2.1% a year from 2015–24, a faster pace than that seen since the financial crisis, but some way short of the experience of the pre‐crisis decade. The shortfall relative to the pre‐crisis period is largely due to a smaller contribution from growth in labour supply, which reflects the impact of an ageing population. However, labour is set to make a much stronger contribution to potential output growth in the UK than in most other major European countries over the next decade.
• The combination of a large output gap and healthy growth in potential output will provide the conditions for firm growth and low inflation over the medium term, with GDP growth expected to average 2.4% a year from 2015 to 2024. Growth could be stronger were it not for the sizeable drag from fiscal consolidation over the next four years and the dampening effect that this will have on activity. This will ensure that the output gap closes very slowly. The government's fiscal plans are heavily influenced by the OBR's view that there is limited scope for stronger growth to drive an improvement in the public finances. But if our view turns out to be correct, it will become apparent that the government has pursued a more austere path than is strictly necessary in order to comply with its fiscal rules.

     

Equity Markets & the Economy

Media commentary in the New Year has seen the word ‘recession’ increasingly associated with short‐term US prospects, which seemed so positive only half a year ago. In this article, John Muellbauer 1 Muellbauer is Professor of Economics at Oxford and an Official Fellow of Nuffield College.
discusses this ‘boom to bust’ phenomenon, the role of asset prices and the wider ramifications for global growth, exchange rates and the UK economy.     

Forecast Summary

The economy has remained in recession this year and we now expect growth of under 1/2 per cent. However as the recent signs of an easierpolicy stance, both in the UK and worldwide, are confirmed, we expect a recovery next year, with output growing by 2 per cent against a background of world expansion.     

Impact of EU exit on our UK industry forecasts

• We have lowered our forecast for UK economic growth following the vote to leave the EU on 23 June. GDP growth is now forecast at 1.1% in 2017 and 1.4% in 2018, and the medium‐term outlook has also been nudged down. We have also lowered our forecast for all of the main industrial sectors, with the biggest reductions in the long‐term forecasts for construction and manufacturing, although the weak pound could provide some short‐term boost to the latter.
• Our baseline forecast assumes that the government triggers Article 50 by the end of this year and that the UK leaves the EU by end‐2018. We assume that the government draws a red line under the freedom of movement and thus loses access to the single market. Trade relations revert to WTO rules.
• A number of factors determine the relative impact on each sector. First, in the short term, heightened uncertainty will hit business confidence, causing firms to delay capital spending. Second, less favourable trade relations with the EU could see export‐oriented sectors migrate production away from the UK. Finally, restrictions on migration will reduce the potential size of the labour force.
• Consequently, investment‐oriented sectors such as construction and machinery have seen some of the largest downgrades. Moreover, transport equipment is heavily exported to Europe, so increased trade barriers could see some production move out of the UK. Meanwhile, labour shortages could weaken growth prospects in labour‐dependent sectors. In addition, the vote has created uncertainties around the long‐term viability of London as Europe's major financial centre.
• The outlook for more consumer‐focused sectors is less downbeat, although an uptick in inflation may erode household purchasing power in the near‐term, and the multipliers from lower economic activity are likely to permanently reduce household incomes in the long term relative to our last baseline

     

World trade: Modest recovery continues

The latest indicators suggest a modest recovery in world trade. The apparent upswing in US import demand over the last couple of months is a notable positive signal for the global economy, and the constraining impact on world trade of the Eurozone recession of 2011–13 is also easing. The pace of world trade growth is, however, still relatively slow; our forecasts suggest world trade growth will only recover to its long‐term average level of just under 6% per year by end‐2015. Trade growth in key emerging markets also remains soft, although some indicators from Asia suggest an improving picture. One reason for the relatively weak growth in world trade may be a restructuring of global supply chains, reducing the growth in trade in intermediate goods. If so, this is not necessarily bad news for the global economy but may have distributional consequences, for example bearing down on growth in countries that have specialised in providing such goods including some emergers.     

The Coalition's Economic Strategy; Has it made a bad thing worse?

The source of the present recession in the UK and elsewhere was the world‐wide financial crisis that followed a generalised collapse in inter‐bank and bank lending to the private sector, which led to huge falls in spending and a collapse in output in most developed countries. By effectively ignoring this amplified credit effect, supply‐side explanations place their emphasis instead on changes to the pattern of productivity shocks, downgrades in risk premia or shifts in aggregate production functions. Our review of some high profile examples of supply‐side accounts suggests that the evidence is against them and a world‐wide fall in aggregate demand seems a more likely explanation. Nonetheless, the supply‐side view still appears to be the approach preferred by the Treasury suggesting, as it does, that present levels of slack in the economy are small. The Coalition's main response to the recession here has been fiscal consolidation, based on the claim that the jump in the fiscal deficit was not due to the world recession and was instead caused by Labour's profligate spending. Also, the Coalition's strategy treats the two problems; that of ensuring recovery and that of achieving a sustainable debt ratio in the longer term as if they were the same problem. Not only are these two claims wholly wrong, the risks they pose to the economic future of the country are very large and of long duration. It is already evident that the “cuts now” programme has retarded the recovery as it assumes, incorrectly, that the deficit can be reduced by making cuts to spending without these having adverse effects on economic growth. And its precipitate rush to cut Welfare and non‐investment Education budgets are visibly leading to worse, not better, efficiency outcomes in these key sectors, in spite of government claims to the contrary. A low wage, low productivity economy seems a highly likely outcome of the present policy over the medium to longer term.     

Tighter labour markets to finally lift global wages

• Wage growth has been relatively slow since 2007 in advanced economies, but an upturn may be in sight. Slow productivity growth remains an issue but tighter labour markets make a positive response by wages to rising inflation more likely and there are signs that compositional and crisis‐related effects that dragged wage growth down are fading – though Japan may be an exception.
• Overall, our forecasts are for a moderate improvement in wage growth in the major economies in 2017–18, with the pace of growth rising by 0.5–1% per year relative to its 2016 level by 2018 – enough to keep consumer spending reasonably solid.
• Few countries have maintained their pre‐crisis pace of wage growth since 2007. In part this reflects a mixture of low inflation and weak productivity growth, but other factors have also been in play: in the US and Japan wage growth has run as much as 0.5–1% per year lower than conventional models would suggest.
• The link with productivity seems to have weakened since 2007 and Phillips curves – which relate wages to unemployment – have become flatter. A notable exception is Germany, where the labour market has behaved in a much more ‘normal’ fashion over recent years with wage growth responding to diminishing slack.
• ‘Compositional’ factors related to shifts in the structure of the workforce may have had an important influence in holding down wage growth, cutting it by as much as 2% per year in the US and 1% per year in the UK. There are some signs that the impact of these effects in the UK and US are fading, but not in Japan.
• The forecast rise in inflation over the next year as energy price base effects turn positive is a potential risk to real wages. But the decline in measures of labour market slack in the US, UK and Germany suggests wages are more likely to move up with inflation than was the case in 2010–11 when oil prices spiked and real wages fell.

     

The London Business School with Gower Publishing

The New Year has started with a burst of enthusiasm in UK asset markets. The stock market has reached an all-time high and the pound has recovered from the sub-1.50 and DM2.40 lows that it hit in the aftermath of its exit from the ERM last September. There are external reasons for the buoyant start to 1993, namely the exposure of UK companies to the us economy where recovery seems assured, and the desire to park short-term funds outside the EMS where renewed turmoil greeted the start of the New Year. But over and above this, hopes have risen that the worst of the UK downturn may be over, that recession is at last ending and recovery beginning. It is this question that we examine here.
We have argued before that the recession will not be over in any meaningful sense until the level of output tops the pre-recession peak of the second quarter of 1990, output growth returns to its trend rate of 2-2.5per cent and unemployment starts falling, But in a more limited sense we can ask whether output has stopped falling and whether a recovery in output is under way. Specifically we may ask whether, when the CSO comes to date the trough of the recession, it will be put in 1992 or whether it is still ahead of us in 1993.
In answer to this last question, we find that the trough of the recession may have occurred as long ago as April 1992. If so, the initial recovery phase has been feeble to say the least - there is almost no hard data yet showing a recovery in output. What is evident - and it is on this that market enthusiasm is based - is that (consumer) demand is rising slowly. The hope is that the increase in demand will be sustained, and that a recovery in output will follow.     

World Economic Prospects Monthly

Overview: Some glimmers of hope start to appear

• ? Prospects for early‐2019 remain downbeat, but latest data offer some glimmers of hope that growth is beginning to stabilise. We continue to expect easier financial conditions and other policy support to trigger a modest acceleration in global GDP growth in the latter part of 2019.
• ? On the face of it, our latest forecasts suggest that we have become more upbeat about the outlook for the global economy. We now forecast world GDP will rise by 2.7% this year and 2.9% in 2020, after last year's 3.2% gain, upward revisions of 0.2pp for both 2018 and 2019 and 0.1pp for next year. But these revisions largely reflect a change in the GDP base year from 2010 to 2015. This has increased the weights of faster‐growing economies such as China at the expense of slower‐growing economies, in turn boosting world GDP growth.
• ? There are plenty of reasons to remain cautious in the near term. For instance, trade indicators have continued to weaken recently, while the global manufacturing PMI has fallen to only just above the 50 no‐change level.
• ? However, there are some signs that both trade and manufacturing data (at least outside the eurozone) may be beginning to stabilise. Just as importantly, the global services PMI has picked up in the early stages of this year. In the past, sustained global slowdowns have tended to see the services PMI follow the manufacturing PMI down. Meanwhile, European retail sales have continued to expand in early‐2019.
• ? Beyond the short term, we remain cautiously optimistic that GDP growth will pick up again. Chinese credit data, which leads hard activity data, has recently improved and, although uncertainties over US‐EU trade relations remain, global trade tensions seem to be waning. Last but not least, more dovish central banks — we no longer expect the Fed to hike rates again in this cycle — and the resultant loosening in financial conditions should support growth in both the advanced and emerging economies.

     

Why we aren't predicting a global recession

• ? Fears that the global economy is heading into a recession are rising. But while we cannot ignore the risks that a recession could be brewing, our baseline assumption is still for a modest growth slowdown from here.
• ? The global economy is in a similar position to 2012 and 2015, as mounting uncertainties dampen growth. This time, trade tensions are a high‐profile culprit rather than the possible collapse of the eurozone or a China hard landing.
• ? In the previous two cases global growth fell to around 2.5% ‐ around the rates seen in Q2 this year ‐ only to then rebound. Our baseline forecasts assume a similar mini cycle, albeit with only a modest growth rebound.
• ? We also assume that further major adverse shocks won't materialise, and that insurance policy moves by central banks will stop a plunge in investment and households from panicking.
• ? Still, recession fears should be taken seriously ‐ slowdowns can become self‐perpetuating. Once annual GDP growth has fallen by over 1ppt from its peak, the eventual decline typically ends up being much larger ‐ of the seven growth slowdowns since the late 1970s where annual growth slowed by over 1ppt ‐ four resulted in either a global recession or only a narrow escape from one.
• ? With US‐China tensions unlikely to recede and factors like the US yield curve inversion adding to the air of gloom, the latest downturn could gain momentum.
• ? Although reduced macro volatility and anchored inflation have made it easier for policymakers to deliver soft landings, the effectiveness of monetary policy has waned. And with China no longer acting as spender of last resort, it's vital that governments in advanced economies stand ready to pick up the slack

     

Japan

Economic activity still looks subdued in early 2015. Business surveys have deteriorated and household spending has weakened. Trade is a bright spot, relatively speaking. But we estimate that GDP growth was only 0.4% in Q1, indicating a rather anaemic upturn following the recession in the middle of last year.…     

World economy

The recent run of soft survey data suggests that an imminent rebound in global GDP growth is unlikely and that concerns about slowing growth and trade tensions may now be taking a toll on service sector activity. We still forecast global GDP growth to slow into early next year but while recession risks have increased, we do not see this as the most likely scenario. In both 2019 and 2020 as whole we expect global GDP growth to average 2.5% each year, the weakest rate since 2009.     

The London Business School with Gover Publishing

The world economy is in poor shape. OECD industrial production fell 0.5per cent in both 1991 and 1992 arid though it may now have stopped falling it is still, on our estimates, below year-earlier levels. The US recovery continues to disappoint; recession persists in Japan and Europe; inflationary pressures, already weak, are waning. Next month's UK forecast would normally be based on the world forecast published in June's International Economic Outlook, when we were looking for G7 output to rise 1.2 per cent this year, 2.5 per cent next. But this now looks on the high side and although a detailed revision to the world forecast mist wait until the December IEO, as at1 input to the UK forecast we are shading our G7 growth forecasts - to I per cent this year and 2.25 per cent in 1994. Similar downward revisions are also in train at the OECD arid IMF, according to recent press reports. The more sluggish output performance is already having mi impact on the oil price, which has fallen below £16 a barrel. Together, these developments imply lower world inflation and, particularly in post-ERM Europe, a faster easing of monetary policy than we had allowed for in June.     

Japan

Recent data point to an exit from recession in Q4 2014. Retail sales were up 2.8% in the three months to November, while industrial production was up 1.9%. In addition, exports are finally picking up significantly, and PMI readings are holding above the 50‐mark. Still, activity levels remain well below those seen in early 2014. We estimate that Q4 saw growth of 0.6%, but this will leave output 1.6% lower than in Q1 – Japan will not see a sharp ‘V‐shaped’ recovery from recession…     

Global recessions as a cascade phenomenon with interacting agents

This paper examines global recessions as a cascade phenomenon. In other words, how recessions arising within one or more countries might percolate across a network of connected economies. An agent based model is set up in which the agents are Western economies. A country has a probability of entering recession in any given year and one of emerging from it the next. In addition, the agents have a threshold propensity, which varies across time, to import a recession from the agents most closely connected to them. The agents are connected on a network, and an agent’s neighbours at any time are either in (state 1) or out (state 0) of recession. If the weighted sum exceeds the threshold, the agent also goes into recession. Annual real GDP growth for 17 Western countries 1871–2006 is used as the data set. The model is able to replicate three key features of the statistical distribution of recessions: the distribution of the number of countries in recession in any given year, the duration of recessions within the individual countries, and the distribution of ‘wait time’ between recessions i.e. the number of years between them. The network structure is important for the interacting agents to replicate the stylised facts. The country-specific probabilities of entering and emerging from recession by themselves give results which are by no means as well matched to the actual data. We are grateful to an anonymous referee for some extremely helpful comments.     

WORLD OUTLOOK

World output, which was strengthening immediately prior to last October, appears to have barely suffered in the short term from the stock market crash. Apart from an early reaction by US consumers - since reversed - demand is proving robust and in early 1988 OECD industrial production is, we estimate, 6 per cent up on year-earlier levels, with GNP more than 4 per cent higher. Indeed such is the strength of activity that the present balance of risk is not that recession is imminent but that inflation may pick up again. In the United States, where activity rates are at their highest level for eight years and unemployment is at a fourteen-year low, monetary policy has been tightened and interest rates are moving higher. The Bundesbank is keen to follow suit and the BoJ is keeping the situation under review. Nevertheless, with wages in most countries still adjusting to the low inflation rates of the last two years, there is little evidence yet that prices are accelerating.
We expect to see world interest rates edging higher in the second half of the year as recorded inflation picks lip. But we believe that underlying inflation remains low and that, even on the assumption that oil prices return to 18 a barrel, OECD consumer price inflation will peak early next year at a little over 4 per cent. Tighter monetary policy is also expected to hold back demand over the next 12 months. Consequently, we expect some weak- ness in output in the first half of next year but discount the possibility of a severe recession. GNP growth in the OECD area is forecast to decline from the 3 per cent rate of 1987–8 to a little over 2 per cent next year and to a sustainable 2½ per cent p.a. over the medium term.     

The Economic Outlook for London

The strength of London's economy has been very apparent over the past year, after a period when the potential for recovery was clear but there was less hard evidence. Financial services have clearly played a large part in driving the acceleration in London's growth, with stock markets, M&A activity and profitability all strong over the last 18 months. London's growth has also been bolstered by strong international immigration. Our latest forecasts show a modest slowdown in London's economy next year from a robust 3.9% in 2006, in response to higher UK interest rates and weaker growth in both the US and the Eurozone. But employment in London is still forecast to rise by 1.2% in 2007, with GDP expected to grow by 2.9% in London compared with 2.3% in the UK as whole.