The explanations and forecasts are based on a particular view of how the global economy works and moves over time. This view is that the world economy moves in cycles – long waves and shorter cycles conditioned by these long waves – and tends to be dominated by the trend and cyclical movement of certain core economies. Most other analyses deny such cycles as being inherent and recurrent, seeing macroeconomic phenomena as the result of various random global shocks or policy decisions in the major global economies.

The Global Economic Monitor (GEM) is our economic report on the global economy and is prepared on a monthly basis. As its name suggests, this report monitors important trends in the global economy as a whole and a number of key variables in particular. The variables chosen, and interpretation of the significance of their movement, are based on our above-mentioned view of the functioning of the global economy.

The data and charts selected for each month’s report are intended as indicating important developments in the global economy on the basis of our particular view of its functioning. We are of the view that most other reports tend to reproduce what is in effect “the flavour of the month” – offering little by way of substance and continuity.