Four major elections and a rate cut: 2024 will be an exciting year
This column appears on the second working day of the new year, and, as is customary, it tries to discern the path ahead. Amid the known-unknowns, some developments look almost certain. It is fair to say that the world will continue to be influenced by geopolitical shifts and conflicts in the first quarter of 2024.
The war in Ukraine and humanitarian crisis in the Levant look like spilling over to the new year and casting a shadow over the world economy. The US economy might finally buck a recession, the Eurozone will continue its search for the elusive growth sauce and global central banks might finally loosen their hold on monetary policy. This much seems a done deal.
But it will be domestic politics that will hold the key to global economic prospects in 2024. The world is likely to witness over 50 national elections during the year, of which four will be decidedly critical for the global economy: the US, Russia, the EU and India. The US presidential election will be a closely followed political event, what with Donald Trump unrelenting in his comeback bid despite formidable hurdles erected by the nation’s legal and regulatory institutions; opinion polls show him as the most popular choice.
If he somehow manages to sidestep his legal challenges and win, some economic outcomes are predictable: climate denial, withdrawal from multilateral institutions and plurilateral agreements, rattling of trade sabres, anti-immigration laws, and a greater degree of protectionism. If, on the other hand, Trump is eventually barred from contesting on legal grounds, it will then be more of an open contest, with the US economy’s trajectory between now and November playing a large role. It is also possible for part of the campaign to spill
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