The Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund usually provide a platform for various organizations, policymakers and commentators to reflect on the state of the global economy, offer assessments of the previous year¡¯s developments and forecast what lies ahead.

This year¡¯s meetings, which took place in Washington in April, were accompanied by grim predictions that underscored the growing likelihood of a prolonged global recession.

While many analysts previously assumed that the confluence of crises that the world has faced over the past three years ¡ª the COVID-19 pandemic, supply-chain disruptions, the war in Ukraine and the resulting inflation crisis and financial turmoil ¡ª would have a significant but ultimately transitory effect on the global economy, new data suggest that the current economic upheaval will last longer than initially expected.