Business

In the October World Economic Outlook, we are projecting a modest improvement in global growth to 3.4 percent in 2020, another downward revision of 0.2 percent from our April projections. However, unlike the synchronized slowdown, this recovery is not broad-based and remains precarious.

What happens if non-US banks suddenly find themselves short of dollars? That was the case during the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, when US financial firms were reluctant to lend dollars to their foreign counterparts. To prevent the collapse of the global financial system, the Federal Reserve provided more than $500 billion in emergency funds to overseas central banks, which could then on-lend the money to their dollar-starved home-country banks.