After a long period of uneven and fragile growth, the global economic recovery is finally beginning to look stable, and even strong.
The eurozone, having apparently shrugged off the after-effects of the sovereign debt crisis, is now into a solid recovery. The US, notwithstanding some recent weakness in gross domestic product growth, is robust enough that the Federal Reserve is planning to raise interest rates next week. Although China still has big problems with debt, its economy is chugging along fine for now. And after their worst performance in 2016 since the global financial crisis, the emerging markets as a whole are recovering.
But behind this happy news lie some concerns, particularly with the emerging markets. Their long-term prospects have been hampered by a lack of investment and poor productivity growth that echoes the problems of their developed-world counterparts. They should use the opportunity of the current benign conditions to remedy those problems as soon as possible.