In summary, members were most concerned about the fiscal position of the US and recommended raising taxes to deal with it. Respondents were close to 50-50 on whether Europe’s recent fiscal announcements would be a game-changer for growth, and the majority thought they wouldn’t be inflationary. A global recession would require a combination of fiscal and monetary policy action; by themselves, fiscal policy was considered slightly more effective than monetary policy.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, among the G7 economies, SPE members were most concerned about fiscal sustainability in the US. The majority (55%) thought the US should address this via raising domestic taxes, with 30% thinking lower spending would be better. Only around one-in-eight respondents said the US didn’t need to reduce its deficit, and tellingly only one respondent of the 79 replies thought it should raise revenue by lifting tariffs.

Of the remaining G7 economies, the UK came (a not-so-close) second in the fiscal unsustainability ranks, slightly more worrisome than France (where the IMF expects deficits between 5% and 6% of GDP for the next five years) and Japan (where high levels of public debt are largely owned by domestic investors).

Slightly more than half of respondents thought Europe’s recent fiscal loosening announcements would not be a game-changer for European growth – though it was a close call. A larger percentage (around 60%) thought that European fiscal loosening wouldn’t be inflationary.

Finally, a plurality of members said they favoured a combination of monetary and fiscal policy to deal with a global recession (should one transpire). Of the remainder, slightly more favoured using monetary policy alone than fiscal policy alone.

Our questions asked about the effect of AI on the economy and on one’s own productivity. The overwhelming majority (over 70% of responses) saw the effect on economic growth being “mildly positive”, with more (about 15%) seeing the impact as “very positive” than unchanged or negative. Nonetheless, more saw AI ultimately pushing up on unemployment (around 29%) then lowering it (9%), though by far the majority (over 60%) expected no effect here. While almost 40% of respondents said they didn’t use AI explicitly themselves, 70% of those that did use it said it made them more productive (“moderately” rather than “much” more productive was the most popular answer).