Category Archives: Economics

German Exports Continue To Rise

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German exports, long the mainstay of the national economy, rose for a third month in four in August according to data released today from the Federal Statistical Office. The year on year increase of 13.4% is partly a reflection of the way the recent drop in the value of the euro has helped boost demand.

“According to provisional data of the Federal Statistical Office, Germany exported commodities to the value of EUR 63.4 billion and imported commodities to the value of EUR 51.9 billion in August 2005. German exports of August 2005 thus were 13.4% and imports 15.3% above the respective August 2004 levels. Upon calendar and seasonal adjustment, exports increased by 3.5% and imports by 6.0% compared with July 2005.

The foreign trade balance showed a surplus of EUR 11.6 billion in August 2005. In August 2004, the foreign trade balance showed a surplus of EUR 11.0 billion. Upon calendar and seasonal adjustment, the foreign trade balance showed a surplus of EUR 12.7 billion in August 2005.”

While exports power ahead the continuing weaknesses in domestic consumer demand and investment are to be seen in the fact that German industrial production fell 1.6 percent in August while factory orders fell 3.7 percent.

Alcohol Consumption Pro-Cyclical?

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Thanks mainly to indirect encouragement from commenter Teme, I am continuing to plough the Finland furrow. Today I found this very interesting piece of research:

ARE SLUMPS REALLY DRY SEASONS?

This paper explores the connection between alcohol mortality, drinking behaviour and macroeconomic fluctuations in Finland by using both aggregate and micro-level data during the past few decades. The results from the aggregate data reveal that an improvement in regional economic conditions measured by the employment-to-population rate produces a decrease in alcohol mortality. However, the great slump of the early 1990s is an exception to this pattern. During that particular episode, alcohol mortality did indeed decline, as there was an unprecedented collapse in economic activity.
The results from the micro-data show that an increase in the employment-to-population rate and expansion in regional GDP produces an increase in alcohol consumption while having no effect on the probability of being a drinker. All in all, the Finnish evidence presented does not overwhelmingly support the conclusions reported for the USA, according to which temporary economic slowdowns are good for health. In contrast, at least alcohol mortality seems to increase in those bad times that are not exceptional economic crises like the one experienced in the early 1990s. However, there is evidence that alcohol consumption is strongly procyclical by its nature. This suggests that alcohol consumption and mortality may be delinked in the short-run business cycle context.

KEY WORDS: alcohol mortality, drinking, business cycles

German Confidence Indexes

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The sharp eyed will have noticed that I have copiously refrained from commenting on the unexpectedly high reading obtained in yesterday’s German Ifo Institute Business Climate index. The index registered a slight unexpected increase, but as Ifo President Hans-Werner Sinn notes: “An evaluation of responses submitted before and after the federal election showed a tendency to more unfavourable expectations after than before the election, so the reading may in fact say a lot more about sentiment before rather than after the election.

More informative in many ways may be the Gfk consumer climate survey out today (follow link and click on button). The survey, which attempts to forecast the climate going forward, saw an increase in the number expressing scepticism about private income expectations and the propensity to buy:

“While in August this year the consumer mood was still relatively unaffected by the hike in oil prices and yet fired by the prospects of the elections, both the tax reform and the trend in oil prices seem to have been felt in September. Indicators covering private income and private consumption are particularly affected. Consequently, the consumer climate was also slightly down. In contrast, economic prospects have become more optimistic. The findings of the September survey given below do not reflect the outcome of the recent elections, since the survey was completed just before the date when the elections were held.”

At the present time it is very hard to assess what the impact of Germany’s election stalemate will be on the economic climate moving forward.

More Things Finnish

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Just a couple of background papers on Finland. Firstly this working paper from Jaakko Kiander “The Evolution of the Finnish Model in the 1990s: From Depression to High Tech Boom“, and a paper from Francesco Daveri and Mika Maliranta: Aging, Technology and Productivity (which you can find in this working papers list).

You can find the abstract below the fold.
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Italy’s Perverse Problem

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Italy has, of course, it’s own version of the twin deficit: on the one hand a political system which maintains serious democratic and credibility deficits (viz the mutual ppresence of Tremonti and Fazio in Washington this weekend) and the equally important financial deficit which has generally received less attention in the press. (We can leave on one side the growing Balance of Payments current account defecit for the time being). Last Friday Morgan Stanley’s Vicento Guzo drew attention to the government budget deficit issue, describing the task of introducing auterity measures with the backdrop of such lacklustre growth as ‘daunting’, and pointing to one highly ‘perverse’ consequence of Italy’s euro membership:

Market reaction was muted, as usual. Italy keeps benefiting from the euro’s shelter effect. Had this political turmoil occurred ten years ago, outside the common currency influence, it would have probably led to a noticeable rise in the country’s borrowing costs with dangerous ripple effects on its financial system. It may sound as a great achievement, but the path ahead is more treacherous than it looks, in our view. The currency is playing a perverse role, by reducing the incentive to seriously tackle the debt problem. Markets’ appraisal, however, is inherently binary: either they assume Italy will put its debt on a sustainable trajectory or they assume it won’t. This is why the cost of further procrastination might be suddenly high.

Why Finland?

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I just put up a post on the economic situation of Finland. Now I am putting another. Why the sudden interest? What is there about the Finnish economy which could be of interest to more people than the five million or so who actually live there?
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Logging-on Finland

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I am trying to follow developments in the Finnish economy. This isn’t always easy since I am linguistically challenged, and the english language press doesn’t have a lot of info. One thing is clear: growth since the start of the century hasn’t been spectacular. Of course drawing any clear conclusions is difficult since the economy seems to be heavily dependent on one tech company and its lumber industry:

Finland’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose 1.7 percent month-on-month in July for an annual rise of 0.9 percent, due to increased activity in construction and services, Statistics Finland (SF) said on Tuesday.

SF also revised the June year-on-year GDP figure to a decline of 3.2 percent versus a previous 3.3-percent decline.

The country’s paper industry was still affected in July by production lost during plant start-ups after mills in the key export sector were shut for 7 weeks from mid-May.
Source: NTC research

You can find the Statistics Finland data here.

Sharp Decline In German Investor Confidence

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NTC research is reporting that investor confidence declined sharply in Germany in September. The research – by think tank ZEW – was carried out between September 5 and Monday at 1500 GMT. So the reading is weighted to pre-election (but post Merkel slump) answers:

German investor confidence fell in September due in major part to uncertainty about the country’s future economic policies, a survey by the ZEW economic think tank showed on Tuesday.

ZEW’s expectations indicator, based on a poll of 309 analysts and institutional investors, fell to 38.6, from 50.0 in August.

”An essential reason for the declining indicator is that uncertainty about the future economic policy may affect the investment climate and puts the economic upswing at risk, ” ZEW said in a statement.

Optimism On The German Economy

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Both New Economist and MacroBlog seem very upbeat about the prospects for the German economy. Macroblog cites Bloomberg and says “Things are definitely looking up“. New Economist is rather more guarded, pointing to the IMF forecast, and the recent Federal Statistics Office announcement that second quarter growth came in at 0%. But New Economist find faith in an (old) Economist view that things are getting better in Germany’s surprising economy (ask Doug on the main page about the surprising bit 🙂 ). As New Economist says “Of course the Economist can get it wrong, but in thbis case maybe they’re onto something”, while as Edward replies “of course the IMF can get it wrong, but in this case maybe they’re onto something”

The Financial Times definitely comes down on the side of the optimism camp, but in their case with significant prudence:

However, fears Germany?s election system might result in a fractious ?grand coalition? between the CDU and Social Democrats may have damped expectations more recently and economists remain cautious about the strength of any German upswing. Holger Schmieding, economist at Bank of America, warned that expectations were fickle and that ?the economic upswings heralded by major surges in the ZEW in mid-2002 and early 2004 both turned out to be disappointingly shallow and short-lived?.

As for me, well, for my part
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France’s Trade Deficit On The Rise

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France has just clocked up a record trade deficit for the first six months of this year: 11.193 billion euros. This now adds the French to the eurozone BoP sick room along with Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal. Of course oil imports form an important part of the picture, but that doesn’t make the headache any less.

The shortfall in June widened to 1.194 billion euros from 1.148 billion in May. The deficit for the first half of 2004 had been limited to 581 million euros.

The finance ministry said that at prices prevailing at the beginning of August France could face an energy sector deficit of more than 40 billion euros this year after 29 billion in 2004.

“The increased impact of the energy component has accounted for nearly half the deterioration in the overall trade balance for France” in the past year, the ministry said, citing rising oil prices.

Alexandre Bourgeois, an economist at Natexis Banques Populaires, said the trade deficit of the last 12 months — 20.6 billion euros — was the highest in French history.