When investment lags, the instinct is to call for more capital. But capital has rarely been more abundant. The McKinsey Global Institute puts the global balance sheet near $1.8 quadrillion ($1,800 trillion) in 2025, with household wealth growing a record $570 trillion. Yet only 20 percent of last year's wealth growth came from net new investment in real assets like machinery, buildings, and intellectual property—down from 30 percent, on average, since 2000. The bottom line: Capital is flowing into repricing what already exists rather than funding what comes next. The task for leaders is to steer more of this abundance toward investment that actually expands the economy.
For more, see: The global balance sheet 2026: Imbalance and divergence.