NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — The world economy will soon "recouple" with the US after proving immune to its slowdown this year, according to economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Having previously said the world's leading economies were strong enough to shrug off weakening US growth, the economists at the most profitable securities company now expect them to weaken next year.

Fallout from the US housing slump is now spreading internationally by triggering a surge in credit costs, raising concern that other mortgage markets may suffer a similar drop. The cost of borrowing euros for three months rose to a seven-year high yesterday.

"We are starting to see more signals that what began as a US-specific shock is morphing into a global shock," Peter Berezin, a New York-based economist, told clients in a report yesterday. "We now expect economic growth to slow more in the rest of the world than in the US."