The economic recovery goes global

This holiday week has seen a fresh wave of reports suggesting the U.S. economy is continuing to gain momentum and will keep expanding at a healthy pace well into next year. It gets better: The accelerating U.S. economy is lifting activity in Japan and western Europe, too, even in countries where growth had come to a near-standstill.

A SEMIANNUAL FORECAST issued Wednesday by a group representing 30 of the world’s biggest economies declared that “a palpable recovery has finally taken hold” around the world. The report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development referred to a “revival of animal spirits” in the United States, the world’s largest economy, and surprisingly strong improvement in No. 2 Japan.