The world economy has been largely driven by a pandemic cycle since early 2020. In spring 2020, there were major concerns about the near and medium-term prospects for the world economy due to the severe economic dislocations caused by the spread of the virus and the societal and public health responses to it. In this initial phase, there was a large decline in global economic activity and many investment and production plans for 2021 and beyond were downgraded or cancelled. The significant recovery in the third quarter of 2020 and, most importantly, the rollout of vaccine programmes since late 2020 has led to a ... (full story)