By Eswar Prasad and Karim Foda
The global economic recovery remains stuck below takeoff speed, unable to achieve liftoff and facing the risk of stalling. Half-hearted fiscal austerity measures are proving to be a drag on growth and doing little to rebuild investor and consumer confidence.
Monetary policy continues to shoulder the burden of limiting downside risks and has kept financial markets buoyant even in the face of weak growth prospects.
The Brookings-FT Tiger index shows growth momentum remains weak in nearly all major advanced and emerging market economies. The best that can be said about the weak pace of economic activity is that it has bottomed out in some key economies. However, prospects of a strong cyclical pickup in growth are likely to be hampered by continued policy uncertainty and concerns about further financial market turbulence, with the simmering eurozone debt crisis once again coming close to boiling over.
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