With all due caveats, a new post-crisis moderate growth scenario is perhaps the most likely, with a recovery beginning in the latter part of 2009 but growth during the recovery failing to reach previous recovery trends. It is also the scenario underlying most mainstream projections, such as those of the IMF, World Bank, and OECD. The main driving forces behind this scenario include a substantial rise in the propensity for private savings as households attempt to pay off debt and build up their net worth, and, concomitantly, a need to rebalance growth in the global economy and reduce excessive current account imbalances. This correction will take many forms (and some time), including changes in private consumption in the United States but also in some surplus countries, movements of relative prices (for energy, minerals, food, and so forth), a higher cost of capital due to deleveraging, and tighter control of the financial sector. These changes will all contribute to lower trend growth for the next cycle.

Another reason this scenario is likely is the need, at some point, for the current monetary and fiscal policy stimulus to be unwound. That will take out some momentum from global growth and will have to be carefully timed to avoid both the dangers of inflationary pressure and premature weakening of aggregate demand. New investment will also be hampered by the large amount of excess capacity in the world economy and the time that will be required to run this capacity down. Lastly, very severe recessions tend to reduce – at least temporarily – trend growth at the beginning of the new cycle. It might take some time before Schumpeterian "creative destruction" kicks back in to raise total factor productivity, especially if the recession takes a toll on R&D expenditure at the firm level (even if public programs can compensate for part of the losses).

There remain many challenges for policy makers and international financial institutions in this transition period from "green shoots" to the next phase. One of the main post-crisis considerations for developing countries will be the new productivity trend of their economies in the wake of this crisis. Those who have targeted fiscal stimulus well, reduced (infrastructure) bottlenecks, and invested wisely in human and physical capital without exceeding their fiscal room for maneuver will be naturally better off and ready to start a more robust growth cycle, using their (new) comparative advantages in the global economy.