For the decade after the 2008/2009 financial crisis, many commentators pointed out that monetary policy had become the “only game in town”. With governments concerned to repair their own balance sheets as tax revenues collapsed following the financial crisis, it was left up to central bankers to try to stimulate the economy through cheap money and unconventional asset-purchase programmes. The gargantuan fiscal stimulus package that will soon pass the US Congress will end this regime. The shift will have significance far beyond America’s borders. 

The OECD’s latest economic outlook forecasts that US president Joe Biden’s programme of government spending — worth 8.5 per cent of US national income — together with the rapid rollout of vaccination efforts, will lift global income by 1 per cent this year. The Paris-based think-tank estimates that the world economy will expand 5.6 per cent this year from its pandemic-induced low — up from its previous 4.2 per cent forecast last December.

A booming US economy means economic demand will “spill over” into the rest of the world, particularly its nearest neighbours and most important trading partners Mexico and Canada as well as export-oriented economies in east Asia and Europe. For advanced economies, which borrow in their own currencies, the implications of faster growth in the US is almost entirely positive — increasing potential exports as well as encouraging the “risk on” sentiment that boosts investment.