Where Have People's View on the Economy Soured?

About three-quarters of executives McKinsey surveyed agree that global economic conditions have worsened compared to six months ago. This is the highest share of executives who believe that the economic conditions have worsened since McKinsey began asking people back in March 2012.

Seventy-nine percent of executives in India think that the economic condition in their country has worsened compared to six months ago. Back in June, only three out of ten Indian executives held that position. McKinsey observed similar movements in many other regions, including North America and Europe. Nearly half of executives in each region view the current economy as worse off than before.

Latin America and developing markets are the two regions where executives' economic outlook has remained stable over the past three months. Still, the share of executives who think the economy is worse than six months ago hangs at 47 percent for Latin America and 61 percent for developing markets.

Overall, two-thirds of respondents say that they expect the global condition to worsen in the next half-year, an uptick from March 2019. Ongoing trade tensions and significant changes to trade-policy were the top cited reasons for the pessimistic outlook.