• Global growth prospects remain robust, with world GDP rising by 4.3 per cent in 2005 and 4.2 percent in 2006.

• We now expect oil prices to stay at around $48 a barrel for the rest of the decade, which will dampen global output growth.

• The burgeoning US current account deficit is increasing the risk of a further downward lurch in the dollar.

• Inflation in the US will accelerate to 3.8 per cent in 2006.

• Growth in the Euro Area will slow to 1.6 per cent in 2005.

• Japan will grow by only 0.9 per cent in 2005.

When the Labour Party came to power in 1997, it had an agenda for reforming the functioning of the UK economy. It planned to introduce a stability-oriented macroeconomic policy that would enhance growth. It was critical of the high level of borrowing that the previous Government had undertaken, and promised to be more prudent. It wanted to increase participation and employment in the economy as a means of both increasing output and reducing poverty. It also aimed to improve the quality of the labour force by enhancing the educational standard of the population and to close the productivity gap between Britain and other European countries.

Growth in the world economy looks robust, with growth averaging over 4 per cent a year in the last 2 years and in the first two years of our forecast. Strong demand in North America is a major factor behind this growth, and it has been associated with increasing current account deficits for the US, as we can see in Chart 1. The emerging imbalances that this strong growth has produced present a major risk to the world economy as they may induce major realignments of exchange rates. We analyse the implications of a major shift in the risk premium on the dollar in Al-Eyd, Barrell and Pomerantz in this Review.

In the January Review discussion of the US current account imbalances, we explored the links between the US current account deficit and exchange rates, and focused on the economic adjustments required to correct the US ‘triple’ deficits. Using NiGEM, we illustrated that a sustained adjustment in the US current account deficit cannot be achieved through a temporary nominal depreciation alone – whether risk or policy driven – but also requires a redressing of the government and household imbalances and a consequent increase in national savings.

Output growth in 2004 was 3.1 per cent, and the preliminary estimate for growth of GDP in the first quarter of 2005 was 0.6 per cent, slightly higher than on our early estimate. Relatively robust growth over the recent past suggests to us that the output gap has now closed, as we can see from chart 2. We anticipate that growth will rise further in the second quarter.

Financial instability can have large adverse effects on an economy. One major cause of instability is asset price bubbles. This paper starts by considering how such bubbles can arise due to the expansion of money and credit. The ways in which subsequent financial instability occurs are then discussed. Banking crises can arise due to panics or as a result of the business cycle. Contagion and financial fragility can cause small disturbances to have large effects. Finally, policy issues are touched upon.

A rapidly growing empirical literature is studying the causes and consequences of bank fragility in contemporary economies. The paper reviews the two basic methodologies adopted in cross-country empirical studies, the signals approach and the multivariate probability model, and their application to study the determinants of banking crises. The use of these models to provide early warnings for crises is also reviewed, as are studies of the economic effects of banking crises and of the policies to forestall them. The paper concludes by identifying directions for future research.

This paper argues that changes in the financial and monetary regimes since the early 1980s may have made it more likely that financial factors in general, and the booms and busts in credit and asset prices in particular, act as drivers of economic fluctuations. As a result, the current environment may be more vulnerable to the occasional build-up of financial imbalances, ie. overextensions in (private sector) balance sheets that herald economic weakness and disinflation down the road, as they unwind, raising also the risk of financial strains and possibly even broader financial instability. Achieving simultaneously monetary and financial stability may call for some significant refinements to current policy frameworks, based on closer cooperation between prudential and monetary authorities. These refinements include a strengthening of the macroprudential orientation of regulatory and supervisory frameworks ensuring that monetary frameworks allow enough room for manoeuvre to lean pre-emptively against the build-up of the imbalances.

Within the context of a practical framework for safeguarding financial stability — entailing both prevention and resolution — this paper discusses the practical boundaries and challenges of assessing financial stability. The paper characterises the financial stability challenge, discusses concepts and definitions essential for safeguarding stability, and puts forward a practical process (but not a blueprint) for assessments. The paper proposes guidelines for disciplining an assessment process, examines measurement and modelling ambiguities, and identifies areas where significant further progress is necessary.

In contrast to recent successful developments in macro monetary policies, the modelling, measurement and management of systemic financial stability has remained problematical. Indeed, the focus of most effort has been on improving individual, rather than systemic, bank risk management; the Basel II objective has been to bring regulatory bank capital into line with the (sophisticated) banks‘ assessment of their own economic capital. Even at the individual bank level there are concerns over (i) appropriate diversification allowances, (ii) differing objectives of banks and regulators, (iii) the need for a buffer over regulatory minima, and (iv) the distinction between expected and unexpected losses (EL and UL). At the systemic level the quite complex and prescriptive content of Basel II raises dangers of ‘endogenous risk’ and procyclicality. Simulations suggest that this latter could be a serious problem.