The US economy has led a global recovery from the coronavirus-induced slowdown, rebounding at a faster pace than it did after the 2008 financial crisis. The Institute of International Finance (IIF) said this in its Global Macro Views report. It said the world’s largest economy made the most complete recovery, compared with other Group of 10 industrialised economies, with both consumption and investment in the third quarter of 2021 rising above their levels at the end of 2019. This remarkable accomplishment is due to substantial fiscal stimulus, which dwarfs in size what was done after the Great Recession, the report said. The report also surveyed the global recovery from pandemic-induced slowdown and assessed 21 advanced economies and 23 emerging markets. The US economy last year grew at the fastest pace since Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s, bouncing back with resilience from 2020’s brief but devastating coronavirus-induced recession. The country’s gross domestic product expanded 5.7 percent in 2021. It was the strongest calendar-year growth since a 7.2 percent surge in 1984 after a previous recession. The economy ended the year by growing at an unexpectedly brisk 6.9 percent annual pace from October to December as businesses replenished their stocks. “The US staged a remarkable recovery from Covid, especially given that the pandemic is far from over,” the IIF said. Real private consumption returned to its pre-Covid levels in the third quarter of last year. Fixed and residential investment in the US have similarly made remarkable recoveries, said the report. “The US stands out vis-a-vis its G10 peers also in terms of gross fixed capital formation, where it is again the best performer,” the IIF said. However, the global economic recovery from the pandemic is “highly uneven”, with an investment slump weighing on medium-term growth prospects outside the US, according to the IIF. The euro zone appears to be headed for a major investment slump, on par with what is playing out in some emerging markets in Africa, South America and Asia, the IIF survey found. The euro zone is also on the “weaker end of the spectrum”, compared with other G10 nations, in terms of real private consumption and gross fixed capital formation, the survey found. “It is true that the euro zone saw a more pronounced run-up in investment ahead of Covid, so perhaps part of the weaker picture now simply points to overinvestment before the pandemic,” the IIF said.