Economy

The most recent retail sales numbers confirm the first quarter dip in GDP as an aberration. The US economy’s growth path, while subpar and uneven, remains on track. Some thoughts below

Major advanced economies have made mixed progress in repairing the private sector’s balance sheets. This column explores private sector deleveraging trends and calls for a set of policies that will return debt to safer levels. Monetary…

By Frances Coppola This, my third post on Latvia, looks at its recovery from the 2008-9 recession. Latvia is often held up as the "poster child" for harsh austerity measures as the means of returning to strong economic growth. In…

So where did they get the money? It's an all too familiar story. Inflows of foreign capital, mainly from Scandinavian banks, attracted by low interest rates and a population hungry for credit - credit advanced, of course, against…

Growth estimates for the full year are now diving to under 3% due to weakness in early Q2 data. Meanwhile the Federal Reserve is having difficulty deciphering what this means for interest rate policy. For now, however, policy divergence,…

Yesterday, the big news for US data was poor post-winter retail sales. I believe US consumption growth still supports a 2 or even 3%ish level of GDP growth. It is actually elsewhere where the US economy has shifted down: inventories,…

Europe is growing again and I see this growth phase lasting a while unless something in the Greek negotiation derails it. And while the Greek negotiations are tense I still believe Greece is an outlier that has indeed been isolated, making…

The US economy’s upswing over the last six years has been predicated on credit like the cycle before it because wage growth has been lacklustre. I want to describe where credit activity has created a lift in consumer spending and in capital…

I have mentioned 1994 as a benign comparison for the US economy of 2015 as opposed to the 1937 comparison Ray Dalio made recently. Having looked at reasonable worst case scenarios with 1997 Japan as a model, I want to look at upside…

Finnish society, like many other European ones, is in the throes of a major transition. More debate needs to be held on what to do to facilitate the transition, and in the meantime deficit spending to make investments in future productivity…