Revised Baseline Scenario: February 9, 2010

Caution: this is a long post (about 3,000 words). The main points are in the first few hundred words and the remainder is supportive detail. This material was the basis of testimony to the Senate Budget Committee today by Simon Johnson.

A. Main Points

1) In recent months, the US economy entered a recovery phase following the severe credit crisis-induced recession of 2008-09. While slower than it should have been based on previous experience, growth has surprised on the upside in the past quarter. This will boost headline year-on-year growth above the current consensus for 2010. We estimate the global economy will grow over 4 percent, as measured by the IMF’s year-on-year headline number (their latest published forecast is for 3.9 percent), with US growth in the 3-4 percent range – calculated on the same basis.

2) But thinking in terms of these headline numbers masks a much more worrying dynamic. A major sovereign debt crisis is gathering steam in Europe, focused for now on the weaker countries in the eurozone, but with the potential to spillover also to the United Kingdom. These further financial market disruptions will not only slow the European economies – we estimate growth in the euro area will fall to around 0.5 percent Q4 on Q4 (the IMF puts this at 1.1 percent, but the January World Economic Outlook update was prepared before the Greek crisis broke in earnest) – it will also cause the euro to weaken and lower growth around the world.