Cazenove's Jeffrey: Drawing lines in the sand

COMMENT

A majority of commentators are expressing cautious optimism when looking forward to 2014.

While the world economy still faces headwinds, they are not blowing as hard as they were, and most countries have developed greater resilience. Nonetheless, to achieve and then sustain stronger growth, Western economies in particular will have to prove they can take the recovery cycle into the next phase. Ten years ago, economists were discussing the emergence of a second locus of international growth, as China’s presence became ever more obvious. While China remains influential, the current cycle is rather more typical of those we saw in the 1980s and 1990s, with the US leading th...