Posts Tagged ‘World Bank’
The World Development Indicators 2010 | World Bank
For economists and data geeks, the World Bank is today releasing an impressive document containing a host of statistics and economic facts covering all the worlds economies and showing shifts in key areas as noted below.
World Development Indicators 2010 | World Bank
WASHINGTON, April 20, 2010 — The World Development Indicators (WDI) 2010, released today, gives a statistical progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The WDI database, launched along with the World Bank’s Open Data initiative to provide free data to all users, includes more than 900 indicators documenting the state of all the world’s economies. The WDI covers education, health, poverty, environment, economy, trade, and much more.
“The WDI provides a valuable statistical picture of the world and how far we’ve come in advancing development,” said Justin Yifu Lin, the World Bank’s Chief Economist and the Senior Vice President for Development Economics. “Making this comprehensive data free for all is a dream come true.”
WORLD DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS 2010
Complete Report as One File(18mb pdf)
http://media.worldbank.org/secure/wdi2010/pdf/complete.pdfPreface, Acknowledgments, Table of Contents, Partners, Users Guide (1.27 mb
pdf)
http://media.worldbank.org/secure/wdi2010/pdf/Frontmatter.pdfWorld View (3.14 mb pdf)
http://media.worldbank.org/secure/wdi2010/pdf/section1.pdfPeople (3.03 mb pdf)
http://media.worldbank.org/secure/wdi2010/pdf/section2.pdfEnvironment (2.52 mb pdf)
http://media.worldbank.org/secure/wdi2010/pdf/section3.pdfEconomy (3.69mb pdf)
http://media.worldbank.org/secure/wdi2010/pdf/section4.pdfStates and Markets (2.35mb pdf)
http://media.worldbank.org/secure/wdi2010/pdf/section5.pdfGlobal Links (2.84mb pdf)
http://media.worldbank.org/secure/wdi2010/pdf/section6.pdfPrimary Data Documentation, Statistical Methods, Credits, Bibliography, Index
of Indicators (521k pdf)
http://media.worldbank.org/secure/wdi2010/pdf/Backmatter.pdf
World Bank GDF highlights growing risks to economic forecasts
When thinking about the future and the economic position of countries that banks must consider, I listen far less to politicians and more to IMF and World bank forecasts.
The use (misuse) of the term recovery fails to acknowledge what the circumstances for people and businesses will be on the other side of the recession.
Here is a new report from World Bank that looks to the future with more pragmatism, although they still use the word recovery. Note their focus is skewed by their mandate for developing countries, however they have to look at the entire economic picture to get there.
Global Development Finance 2009: Charting a Global Recovery | World Bank
The world is transitioning from an extended credit boom and economic overheating to an era of slower growth. Looking to medium-term developments, participants in the international financial system—consumers, investors, traders, and firms—must adapt their behavior to the new realities of tightened credit conditions, a prominent role of the state in financial affairs, large excess capacity in many industrial sectors, and more closely coordinated regulatory policy
The use of the word transition here is important. Consumers and businesses are moving from one reality (pre 2007) to another over the next 5 years. That transition affects all bank customers, so its worth considering the impact of those shifts, and how products and services ought to be re-thought.
In simple terms the booms over the last 10 years which banks saw in mutual funds and mortgages with easy product volume crashing through the door will be replaced with thoughtful and careful consumers, who are wary of banks, for multiple reasons. Banks took a credibility hit over the last 2 years, and that credibility will take time to restore.
Confidence in the international financial system must be restored
On a final note, it is important to recognize how the severity of the current crisis has undermined confidence in the international financial system (annex 3B). Many economic and financial indicators have exhibited unprecedented declines, moving us into uncharted territory in several respects. Uncertainty surrounding the outlook remains at an all-time high, suggesting that a nascent global recovery will be vulnerable to after-shocks of the present crisis and may not survive any marked deterioration in financial conditions.
(Source: World Bank use both market- and survey-based proxies to gauge investors’ confidence, combining them with measures of consumer confidence in Canada, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States to extract a common global index, using the well-established method of principal component analysis.)
The report has downgraded the view on growth for 2010, and as important speaks at length about the risk associated with the projection still being too optimistic. The graph does suggest that investor confidence is ahead of consumer confidence.
The report calls for an increase in breadth and depth of financial services regulation. The association of government with banks through increased balance sheet support, and regulation could be a double edged sword. Government influence suggests increased safety, but it also implies more costly services. Customers will watch this influence carefully, and look for those banks that match their expectations and needs.
World Bank updates Global economic prospects downward
This revised forecast shifts from 2010 recovery,to an uncertain 2010 recovery. Read through for data and forecasts on your country.
World Bank updates global forecast
This update of the projections in the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects report (GEP) of December 2008, reflects the rapid deterioration in financial and economic conditions—and the increasingly negative interaction between weakening economies and fragile financial systems—that have come to the fore since late 2008 for virtually every country in the world.
Some perspective on GDP, and America’s ability to “come back”
This is much talk these days of the decline of the United States and a fundamental reshaping of relative world economic clout.
It is worthwhile to reflect on the current size of economies before such claims are made. This rambling piece from Richard Florida that I thought was going to deal with the decline of America, actually ends up making the case that the impacts on US cities will be significant. Of that there is little doubt, but the example of Detroit may not be the best to make the point (the Phoenix example is a better one).
Detroit has had and survived at least four sets of signifcant rioting with manufacturing issues at the core, amplified by race issues.
This from the Pittsburgh News in Oct 1933 during the depression.
Indeed it is worth clicking through and reading of this particular event.
“A factory manager at one plant fired several shots as the mob approached the place, but said he aimed over the heads of the rioters”
What can I say. The history of the US is all about survival and moving ahead despite setbacks – but I digress. America cannot be “mis’underestimated.
Here is the GDP ranking of the world. Bear in mind that 2% shifts in GDP are considered gigantic. If the US economy reduced by an impossible 50% it would remain 50% larger than the next largest. [I am aware that there has recently been reported a shift in the top 4 rankings, but the point I am making does not change]
Gross domestic product 2007 | World Bank
Ranking Economy US dollars [000’s]
1 United States 13,811,200
2 Japan 4,376,705
3 Germany 3,297,233
4 China 3,280,053
5 UK 2,727,806
6 France 2,562,288
7 Italy 2,107,481
8 Spain 1,429,226
9 Canada 1,326,376
10 Brazil 1,314,170
There will be serious impacts, the economies of the world will be dramatically different after this event we are all part of, but i maintain the ability of the US to come back is unfathomable compared to the rest of the world. The nearest hope would be the EU if only by size, but while they try to re-architect using 20th century thinking, the US has little to fear.
I do worry about the debt levels in the world [The Great Unwinding], reflected in the banking system. The pending impact of revaluation of that debt to accomodate new asset values will be enormous, and not seen since some of the events in the 17th and 18th centuries. When the dust settles on that score there will be impacts on countries, exchange rates, and inflation/ deflation within those countries – impacts I am not qualified to predict, but they will come.
