Global growth has slowed down recently. While the world economy should gradually regain pace over the coming quarters, overall growth momentum is expected to remain subdued. The recent drop in oil prices has not improved the outlook as it to a substantial degree signals weaker demand;...

We study the properties of the IMF-WEO estimates of real-time output gaps for countries in the euro area as well as the determinants of their revisions over 1994-2017. The analysis shows that staff typically saw economies as operating below their potential. In real time, output gaps tend to have...

In the last few decades, real GDP growth and investment in advanced countries have declined in tandem. This slowdown was not the result of weak demand (there has been no shift along the Okun curve), but of a decline in potential output growth (which has shifted the Okun curve to the left). We...

Using European Commission real-time data, we show that potential output (PO) estimates were substantially and persistently revised downwards after the Great Recession. We decompose PO revisions into revisions of the capital stock, trend labor, and trend total-factor productivity (TFP)....

The path of output prior to the financial and economic crisis turned out to be not sustainable and lower than previously estimated in some European crisis countries. Specifically, the output gaps have been underestimated (and inversely potential output overestimated) before the recent crisis. It...

Global potential output growth has been flagging. At 2.5 percent in 2013-17, post-crisis potential growth is 0.5 percentage point below its longer-term average and 0.9 percentage point below its average a decade ago. Compared with a decade ago, potential growth has declined 0.8 percentage point...