The Great Recession, which ran from 2007 to 2009 in the United States, is still affecting economies around the world, limiting their growth potential, says Johns Hopkins University economist Laurence Ball.

"Recent recessions have had dire effects on economies’ productive capacity," he writes in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. "Countries with the deepest recessions have also experienced the greatest long-term damage."

He examined 23 countries and found that the loss of potential economic output varies from almost zero in Australia and Switzerland to more than 30 percent in Greece, Hungary and Ireland.

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The total for the United States is 4.7 percent, and the average for all 23 countries is 8.4 percent, Ball says.

"In the countries hit hardest by the recession, the growth rate of potential output is significantly lower today than it was before 2008," he writes. "This growth slowdown means that the level of potential output is likely to fall even farther below its pre-crisis trend in the years to come."

Meanwhile, many experts question whether the U.S. economy will ever return to the buoyant growth pace, which at times exceeded 4 percent, that prevailed prior to the Great Recession.

"Many today wonder whether something that has always been true in our past will be true in our future," Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said in a speech Wednesday, according to The New York Times.

"There are questions about whether America can maintain strong rates of growth and doubts about whether the benefits of technology, innovation and prosperity will be shared broadly."

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