Lakshman Achuthan & Anirvan Banerji, Columnists

The Global Economy's Wile E. Coyote Moment

Economies and markets may already be plunging off a cliff.

Always behind.

Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Our prediction last year of a global growth downturn was based on our 20-Country Long Leading Index, which, in 2016, foresaw the synchronized global growth upturn that the consensus only started to recognize around the spring of 2017.

With the synchronized global growth upturn in the rearview mirror, the downturn is no longer a forecast, but is now a fact.