Every recession is different. But the next one may be so structurally distinct from its predecessors that the standard playbooks — the ones that guided investors, policymakers, and executives through 2001, 2008, and 2020 — could prove not just unhelpful, but actively misleading.
Three forces are converging to reshape the business cycle in ways that have no modern precedent: the AI-driven productivity transformation, the largest peacetime fiscal deficits in history, and a labour market that has fundamentally changed its relationship with the economic cycle.
Prof. David Okafor
Chief Economics Correspondent
Prof. David Okafor is The Business Magazin's Chief Economics Correspondent and a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics.
