The World Bank on Tuesday upped its 2024 global growth outlook slightly, thanks to the U.S. economy’s better-than-expected performance. However, the bank said, it expects that overall output will remain below pre-pandemic levels through 2026.
In its most recent Global Economic Prospects report, the World Bank predicted that the global economy is safe from a third consecutive decrease in real GDP growth since a post-COVID hike in 2021. The report also states that 2024 growth will remain unchanged from 2023, stabilizing at 2.6%. However, that’s an increase of a 0.2 percentage point from the bank’s January report.
“In a sense, we see the runway for a soft landing,” said World Bank Deputy Chief Economist Ayhan Kose, adding that the high interest rates have cooled inflation without leading to major disruptions in the U.S. or other major economies.
The World Bank anticipates global growth of 2.7% in both 2025 and 2026, but that’s significantly lower than the global average of 3.1% during the decade prior to the pandemic. It also expect that U.S. interest rates will remain double their 2000-2019 average over the next three years.
