As we mark the tenth anniversary of the global financial crisis, there have been plenty of postmortems examining its causes, its consequences and whether the necessary lessons have been learnt.
So it seems a pertinent moment to ask when the next recession and financial crisis will occur and why. The global expansion is likely to continue this year and next because the US is running large fiscal deficits, China is continuing stimulative policies and Europe remains on a recovery path. Yet by 2020, there are several reasons why conditions for a global recession and financial crisis may emerge.
To start with not only will the current US economic stimulus have gone away by 2020, but a modest fiscal drag will push growth below 2 per cent.