by Rebecca Wilder The Italian Economy Is Sliding Today I.Stat released the breakdown of Q1 2012 real GDP for the Italian economy. Weak external demand plus a precipitous drop in private sector spending dragged the headline real gross domestic product (GDP) 0.8% over the quarter (3.2% at an annualized rate). The highlights are the following: […]
by Rebecca Wilder ECB Rates Policy is Clogged in Key Periphery Markets How the Euro area (EA) will grow, according to Mario Draghi: The outlook for economic activity should be supported by foreign demand, the very low short-term interest rates in the euro area, and all the measures taken to foster the proper functioning of […]
by Rebecca Wilder Euro area credit: did the ECB wait too long? The ECB released its February report on monetary developments in the Euro area. This is an important report, since it will highlight whether or not the ECB’s LTRO is ‘working’, rather if the new liquidity is passing through to the real economy via […]
by Rebecca Wilder Housing Bubbles: Less Frothy but Europe is Behind Wolfgang Muenchau’s article in the Financial Times, There is no Spanish siesta for the Eurozone, inspired me to update my post on housing bubbles around the world (really just Europe and the US). He argues that Spain’s bubble was much more extreme, and that […]
by Rebecca Wilder Does the US Corporate Saving Rate Portend a Lower Unemployment Rate? An interesting thing happened in Q4 2011: the corporate saving rate declined following two quarters of gains. Nominal net saving by the domestic business sector fell 3%, while nominal gross fixed investment and inventories surged 6% – the two pushed the […]
by Rebecca Wilder Euro Area GDP Report: Not Pretty Today Eurostat released the second estimate of Q4 2011 Gross Domestic Product. Real Euro area (EA) GDP declined 0.3% over the quarter (-1.3% on an annualized basis). In this release Eurostat provides a breakdown across region, spending categories, and industry, and is much more detailed than […]
by Rebecca WilderEuropean Daily Catch: Retail Sales Stabilizing? Today’s real retail sales gave the ECB and EU heads of state another reason to keep their fingers crossed for stability of the Euro area economy (.pdf of release). In January, volume adjusted retail sales increased 0.3% in the Euro area (EA) and broke a 4-month trend […]
by Rebecca Wilder All of the Euro Area Usual Competitive Suspects in One Chart…But with a Twist The European Commission’s Economic and Financial Affairs initiated the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP) Scoreboard. The MIP Scorecard will be used to identify emerging or persistent macroeconomic imbalances in a country. In their inaugural release, the EC listed 12 […]
by Rebecca Wilder Does Latvia Give Us Any Clues? Short answer: yes, as long as global trade growth is negligible. Over the weekend I came across a December CEPR paper about the Latvian economy. Authors Mark Weisbrot and Rebecca Ray highlight the Latvian experience with internal devaluation, which may prove to be a case study […]
by Rebecca Wilder Euro Area Portfolio Flows Today the ECB released the Euro area balance of payments for December. This is a statistical release that is worthy of only the biggest data geeks – but it is quite interesting, especially in forming relationships between FX and capital flows. I’ll demonstrate what’s been going on in […]