The mood in the global economy has brightened during the last year. Confidence indicators, industrial production, headline measures of employment, and cross-border trade flows have improved in most economies. However, this still-modest cyclical expansion is not yet robust enough to yield a durable improvement in potential output or to reduce persistent inequalities. Financial vulnerabilities could be realised by policy and geopolitical shocks. Compared to the 20-year pre-crisis average against which expectations have been set, OECD per capita GDP growth remains over ½ percentage point weaker and global growth overall, projected to rise to just above 3½ per cent by 2018, also lags. In sum, the global economic outlook is better, but not good enough to sustainably improve citizens’ well-being.

After many years of weak recovery, with global growth in 2016 at the lowest rate since 2009, some signs of improvement have begun to appear. Trade and manufacturing output growth have picked up from a very low level, helped by firmer domestic demand growth in Asia and Europe, and private sector confidence has strengthened. But policy uncertainty remains high, trust in government has diminished, wage growth is still weak, inequality persists, and imbalances and vulnerabilities remain in financial markets. Against this background, a modest pick-up in global GDP growth is projected this year to 3½ per cent, with an upturn in trade and investment intensity and improving outcomes in several major commodity producers. Only a small improvement is in prospect for 2018, taking global GDP growth to 3.6%. With modest additional pressures in labour and product markets, inflation is likely to remain subdued in the major economies, provided commodity prices do not strengthen further.

International trade has been a powerful engine of global economic growth and convergence in living standards between countries. Trade liberalisation has contributed to large economic gains of emerging market economies and to poverty decline. Specialisation according to comparative advantage and, increasingly, technology-driven and deeper trade integration through global value chains have created new business opportunities and increased economic efficiency. Access to a wider variety of goods and services at cheaper prices has raised well-being and consumers’ purchasing power.

This annex contains data on key economic series which provide a background to the recent economic developments in the OECD area described in the main body of this report. Data for 2017 to 2018 are OECD estimates and projections. Data in some of the tables have been adjusted to conform to internationally agreed concepts and definitions in order to make them more comparable across countries, as well as consistent with historical data shown in other OECD publications. Regional aggregates are based on time-varying weights. For details on aggregation, see OECD Economic Outlook Sources and Methods.