Signal The 2025 global picture was driven by the United States and China

Summary

MGI concludes that while many of the economies it studied saw swings in wealth and balance sheets during 2025, the overall global outcome was shaped mainly by the United States and China. In the US, the key development was a further rise in equity values, fuelled by AI-driven optimism and climbing corporate earnings. In China, it was the build-up of both public and private debt, with corporate debt now double the global average. Both dynamics delivered some short-term economic gains. The report warns, however, that they also left the two economies more exposed to possible corrections, and it treats this concentration as a central theme alongside the diverging paths of major economies.