In 2007, the world economy faced several shocks: a surge in oil prices, an increase in agricultural commodity prices, and a real-estate crisis in the United States. The latter culminated in the subprime financial crisis that erupted in the summer, degenerating into a global bank-liquidity crisis. Despite these shocks, world growth proved resilient. The U.S. economy slowed from 2.9% to 2.2% without eroding the performance of the rest of the world. Asia’s emerging economies—China and India in the lead—remained vigorous. Euro-zone GDP growth stayed firm, moving from 2.7% in 2006 to 2.6% in 2007. The French economy held up well amid the accumulation of external shocks, with GDP growth holding steady at 2.2%. Domestic demand remained brisk. Total investment growth stabilized at a robust pace, as the sharp upturn in productive investment from 4.9% to 7.4% offset the slowdown in household investment from 7.1% to 3.0%. At the same time, the large number of new jobs, the persistent rise in the mean wage per capita, and sizable tax cuts sustained household purchasing power (growth up from 2.6% to 3.3%) and consumption (growth up from 2.3% to 2.5%). By contrast, export growth slowed from 5.4% to 3.1%, and the trade deficit widened at a faster pace, contributing a negative 0.7 points to GDP growth for the year.