The economy today is looking increasingly like the era of shoulder pads and Dallas thanks to the U.S. driving growth, ramping up oil production, and a stronger dollar making the world look the 1990s and 1980s, according to Nariman Behravesh, chief economist of IHS.
Recent plummets in the price of oil price grounds for optimism, Behravesh believes, adding that the cost of a barrel will hit $40 before it starts to rise again. Roughly $1.5 trillion in wealth will be transferred from producers of oil to consumers of it, boosting global GDP by 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points this year, IHS predicts.
The U.S.'s gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 3 percent in 2015, IHS forecasts – close to the 3.2 percent predicted by by the World Bank.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to be the first major central bank to halt quantitative easing and start raising interest rates this year, although there are concerns about the potential effects on dollar liquidity and stress to other markets.
"The Fed in the end is more concerned with the U.S. than the rest of the world. They may delay a meeting or two, but I doubt very much if they'll leave it for another year," Behragvesh told CNBC.
