There is a tendency for institutions that missed the warning signs before the last financial crisis to over-cook their doomsayer’s warnings as they consider the potential for another one.

The International Monetary Fund leads a group of gloomy forecasters that worry about the stability of the global economy amid rising debt levels and slowing GDP growth. How long, they ask, can the expansion seen since the last crash go on before another recession hits?

And if a global recession is pushed further into the future by even larger dollops of borrowed money from the financial system, will the next recession quickly become a crash of similar or even larger proportions than the one seen in 2008?

Some analysts argue that such gloomy warnings ignore the precedent seen in recent years that major economies tend to start the year slowly before getting into gear later on. That was especially true in 2016, when most of the developed world saw only a small lift in GDP in the first quarter before growth took off.

However, the three years from 2014 were characterised by falling oil and commodity prices, which moderated inflation. This gave the global economy a boost it desperately needed, albeit at the expense of oil- and commodity-exporting nations – and the environment. The boost faded in 2017 and left 2018 as a particularly unspectacular year – except in the US, where Donald Trump’s tax cuts more than made up for lacklustre global trade and fed a consumption boom.

As 2019 gets under way, things look very different. Consumer debt has risen back to pre-crisis levels in many countries. Corporate borrowing has soared and governments, while they have reduced annual deficits, continue to sit on mountains of debt that dwarf the borrowing seen before the crisis.

Jacking up rates to calm growth is straight out of the textbook. The trouble with doing it now is that growth is slowing

Another similarity with the pre-2008 period is the determination of central banks to increase borrowing costs. The speeches of central bank officials are littered with references to the need for higher rates, both to bring discipline back to borrowing and, in case another credit squeeze grips the banking sector, to have the tools to prevent a full-blown economic collapse. Bank of England governor Mark Carney has said as much, though his remarks are tempered by threats of a no-deal Brexit. He has been echoed by Jerome Powell, his counterpart at the US Federal Reserve.

The Swedish central bank, the Riksbank, recently increased interest rates and signalled that it planned to continue on that path now that companies were reporting the largest labour shortages since 1996. Threadneedle Street has already raised its base rate from 0.25% in 2016 to 0.75%. The Fed is even further ahead, having pushed rates to a level of 2.25%-2.5% at its December meeting.

Jacking up rates to calm soaring economic growth – at least the kind of growth that can lead to inflation – is straight out of the textbooks. The trouble with doing it now is that growth is slowing: and while the UK and other countries may have full employment by traditional standards, it isn’t the kind of full employment that leads to wage rises.

There are few detailed studies of today’s labour market, but the situation seems to be that it was the 2008 crash – as much as the demise of collective bargaining and the growth of flexible contracts – that has knocked the stuffing out of the average worker, who feels unable to bargain up their wages.

Labour-market economists like David Blanchflower and David Bell of Stirling University argue that unemployment needs to fall towards 2% before wages start to soar, rather than the 4%-4.5% that was considered the more traditional benchmark by central banks.

With only small or non-existent increases in wages above inflation, households might opt for more borrowing, or dip further into their savings to maintain consumption. Recent evidence shows they are doing neither. From the UK to China, consumers are viewing the coming year as a difficult period and not the moment to buy much, apart from life’s basics. They did the same in the years before 2008, when property prices began to stagnate as buyers reached their borrowing limits and car sales slowed.

That turns the spotlight onto the IMF, which is concerned that higher loan costs and lower levels of consumer spending will mean that more corporations go bust. Its remedy has been for governments to pass reforms that allow more jobs to be created. However, the growth of flexible working has singularly failed to increase wage rates.

London-based forecasters Fathom Consulting have pencilled in a global bust for 2020. Nouriel Roubini, who can claim to be one of the few economists to forecast the last crash, also nominates 2020. That’s not much time to prepare.