Business cycle developments in the major seven economies have not been particularly well synchronised in the last two years. The US, Canada and the UK have been in recession, whilst Germany and Japan have been growing strongly. We are predicting that this asynchronicity will continue over the next eighteen months, with growth slowing in Japan and Germany whilst a mild recovery takes place in the English speaking world. However there are some signs that the recovery, at least in the US, is likely to be rather slower than we had anticipated in our August forecast. The Federal Reserve in the US has clearly been concerned about the most recent signals from the American economy, and it encouraged a cut in interest rates on 6th November. The Japanese authorities have also cut interest rates in this quarter, and we anticipate that there will be no substantial increases in German interest rates.