When China sneezes

Stephen Roach | Yale University | 25 February 2020

The world economy has clearly caught a cold. The outbreak of COVID-19 came at a particularly vulnerable point in the global business cycle. World output expanded by just 2.9% in 2019, the slowest pace since the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis and just 0.4 percentage points above the 2.5% threshold typically associated with global recession.

Moreover, vulnerability increased in most major economies over the course of last year, making prospects for early 2020 all th...