OECD - OECD Economic Outlook, Volume 2016 Issue 2

For the last five years the global economy has been in a low-growth trap, with growth disappointingly low and stuck at around 3 per cent per year. Persistent growth shortfalls have weighed on future output expectations and thereby reduced current spending and potential output gains. Around the world, private investment has been weak, public investment has slowed, and global trade growth has collapsed, all of which have limited the improvements in employment, labour productivity and wages needed to support sustainable gains in living standards. Overall, a slowdown in structural policy ambition and policy incoherence have slowed business dynamism, trapped resources in unproductive firms, weakened financial institutions and undermined productivity growth. In the face of these limited prospects, the OECD has argued in previous Economic Outlooks that fiscal, monetary and structural policies need to be deployed comprehensively and collectively for economies to grow sufficiently to make good on promises to their citizens.

The projections in this Economic Outlook offer the prospect that fiscal initiatives could catalyse private economic activity and push the global economy to the modestly higher growth rate of around 3 per cent by 2018. Durable exit from the low-growth trap depends on policy choices beyond those of the monetary authorities that is, of fiscal and structural, including trade policies as well as on concerted and effective implementation. Collective fiscal action undertaken by all countries, including a more expansionary stance than planned in many countries in Europe, would support domestic and global growth even for those economies, who by virtue of specific circumstances, need to consolidate their fiscal positions or pursue a more neutral stance.

Some might argue that there is no space for such fiscal initiatives, given the heavy public debt burden in many economies. In fact, following five years of intense fiscal consolidation, debt-to-GDP ratios in most advanced countries have flattened. It is past time to focus on expanding the denominator GDP growth. This Economic Outlook argues that the current conjuncture of extraordinarily accommodative monetary policy with very low interest rates opens a window of opportunity to deploy fiscal initiatives. Fiscal space has been created by lower interest payments on rolled-over debt, which also increases gauges of market access and of debt sustainability. On average, OECD economies could deploy deficit-financed fiscal initiatives for three to four years, while still leaving debt-to-GDP ratios unchanged in the long term. A front-loaded effort could allow deficit finance to taper sooner and put the debt-to-GDP ratio sustainably on a downward path.

The key is to deploy the right kind of fiscal initiatives that support demand in the short run and supply in the long run and address not just growth challenges but also inequality concerns. These include soft investments in education and R&D along with hard investment in public infrastructures. Such fiscal initiatives would improve outcomes for demand and supply potential even more for economies suffering from long-term unemployment, when undertaken collectively, and when fiscal initiatives are complemented by country-specific structural policies put together in a coherent package. The mix is different for different countries, as developed in Chapter 2, with further details in the Country Notes in of this Economic Outlook .