What Will We Remember When We Remember : 2013 in Review

After the dramas of 2010-2012, when the erstwhile global recovery reeled from pillar to post, buffeted by one momentum-draining shock after another, 2013 was greeted with relief and a bit of cautious optimism. However, those hopes faced one cold shower – and forecast downgrade – after another as the year unfolded. No corners were turned in 2013: the major economies remained on policy support and all the cylinders of the global growth engine were sputtering – trade growth was tepid, credit expansion flat, and domestic and foreign direct investment were lifeless. This paper reviews economic performance in 2013 and suggests a number of developments that may point a change in the Zeitgeist, and possibly even to historic tectonic shifts: the dawning of the post-BRICS era; apparent limits to the extension of global value chains; the Snowden tapes' revelation of industrial espionage; the cresting of the age of mega-regionals; the changing geography of trade as the Arctic melts; the cracking of the OECD consensus in the face of slow growth, deflation, microeconomic distortions and policy impotence; the most hated bull market in history; and a winter's worth of discontent in the United States