Tag Archives: Economics

What A Surprise!

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The results of the latest GfK’s consumer confidence survey are just in. The results are hardly a surprise. (Btw there is a good discussion of consumption in Germany in this post and comments):

Consumer confidence in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, fell for a second month in three as Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government decided to raise sales tax.

GfK’s confidence index, based on a November survey of about 2,000 people that aims to forecast household spending one month ahead, fell to 3.1 from last month’s revised 3.3 reading, the Nuremberg-based market-research company said in an e-mailed statement today. GfK reiterated its forecast that private consumption won’t increase more than 0.2 percent this year.

Higher energy costs are leaving German shoppers with less money to spend in the holiday season while the prospect of a sales tax increase and an 11.6 percent jobless rate dent sentiment. With the European Central Bank poised to raise interest rates as soon as this week, increased borrowing costs will also crimp spending.

Incidentally Wolfgang Munchau in the FT today states that the recent announcement by Jean-Claude Trichet that the ECB was going to raise eurozone rates “must rank as one of the most bizarre monetary policy decisions of recent times”!

Who am I to disagree.

Remember Me When I’m Gone

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Just when he’s left the FT concludes that Schroder’s labour market reforms are in fact working. It is perhaps worth bearing in mind that although the German economy is producing a lot of jobs, a very high proportion of these are temporary.

Controversial labour market reforms introduced in Germany by Gerhard Schröder in 2004 are showing results, according to data published less than a week after he stood down as chancellor…..The state-run BA employment service in Nüremberg said the total number of job placements by employment offices across Germany would exceed 1m this year, an increase from 496,000 in 2004. The average length of unemployment had fallen from 22 months a year ago to about 21 months today – a downward trend that was set to continue next year.

Investment Dearth?

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The idea that there was a global savings glut now having gone out of fashion, some are presently arguing that what we have is an investment dearth (my own view is that these two effectively mean the same thing, since the issue is a relational one). More evidence for this investment dearth hypothesis comes today from the UK.

UK Business investment grew sluggishly in the third quarter, official figures showed, confirming survey evidence that British-based companies are cautious about capital spending even though profit levels are high.

As the FT also notes:

Just as in other European countries, companies have decided to save most of the money they have been making rather than risk investment in new opportunities to generate profit in the future. The reluctance of companies to invest when interest rates are low and the return on the existing capital stock is high has puzzled economists for some time.

Dave Altig had a piece earlier in the week about the BoE rate decision wher he tries to put a brave face on the UK data. This investment news is another little bucket of cold water for the upside optimists. I’m more or less neutral here. The monetary policy committee intimate that the weakening of investment intentions “may also reflect uncertainty about the near-term outlook for the economy in the face of sluggish consumer spending and higher energy prices”. Dave concludes that “Perhaps the uncertainty will lift sooner than later”, and I agree, I’m sure it will: I’m just not sure which way the resolution of the quandry will lead us.

Schyzophrenia Outbreak At The FT?

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I know you should never take what a central banker says at face value, but still. Today Christopher Swann in Washington tells us (in an article entitled: End in sight to the Fed’s rate-tightening cycle – and with no question mark):

For much of the past year and a half the Fed has been running almost on autopilot, with rates being raised from their historic low of 1 per cent in June last year to 4 per cent now in a lockstep of quarter-point moves. None of the economic vicissitudes over the past 18 months – from Hurricane Katrina to surging energy prices – has diverted the Fed from its gradual task of bringing rates to a more neutral level.

But this week’s minutes suggested in the clearest language yet that this task is almost done. In 2006 any further rate rises will have to be justified by surprising economic data, the Fed’s internal discussion appeared to indicate.

For the first time since the rate-tightening began, some of the members of policy-making committee also warned about the dangers of going too far

Meanwhile, back home in the UK, Steve Johnson has this:

“In contrast to the ECB’s caution, comments from the US Federal Reserve hinted at several more rate hikes to come.

Michael Moskow, president of the Chicago Fed, suggested that the Fed funds rate would rise above the “neutral” level expected by the market. “With inflation at the upper end of my comfort zone, an unexpected increase in inflation would be a serious concern.””

So come on lads, get your act together, which is it, almost done, or plenty of juice left in the lemon yet awhile?

Informational Asymmetries in Harbin

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Whatever the underlying reality behind all the news headlines about ‘panic in Harbin’ one thing is sure, there are plenty of asymmetries pending resolution between the ultra-modern and sophistocated new-technology China and the ‘informationally closed’ political system which breeds a lack of trust and the kinds of over-reaction we are now seeing. China obviously badly needs to ‘modernise’ in the ‘welcome to modernity’ sociological sense. If it doesn’t there will always be the danger of this kind of ‘chain reaction’, and clearly, in the conext of modern integrated financial markets, the consequences could turn out to be particularly unpleasant for everyone involved.

Thousands of residents of Harbin on Wednesday night jammed its railway station and booked out all available flights as a deadly 80km toxic slick made its way down the Songhua river, threatening to poison the north-eastern Chinese city’s water supplies. he slick of benzene and other toxins was leaked into the river, the city’s main source of water, after a series of explosions 10 days ago at a chemicals factory 200km upriver. A mood of distrust and paranoia was spreading through the industrial city of 9m people, sharpened by the local government’s decision to turn off water supplies for four days for fear of an environmental catastrophe.

Sobering News

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First off, Dave at MacroBlog has a good summary of the core of the economic policy programme adopted by the new German government. He also has some to-the-point comments about ECB credibility issues

But the big news today must surely be the surprising state of the European consumer . Perhaps the most indicative reading on the situation comes from a report from business consultants Deloitte which states that spending on xmas gifts is expected to fall this year by an average 3 per cent (year-on-year) across nine European countries. Revealingly they find that 49 per cent of Europeans believe their economies are currently in recession.

Now that German domestic consumption is declining comes as no surprise. Economic theory offers us sound explanations as to why this might be the case, nonetheless the pace at which this decline is progressing is pretty striking:

Third quarter growth figures for Europe’s largest economy released yesterday showed that after five years of stagnation, Germany’s economy is locked in a schizophrenic phase. On the one hand the country’s robust exports, which rose 4.7 per cent from the second quarter, are finally translating into stronger investments, up 2.2 per cent.

But consumption, an essential ingredient of a healthy recovery, fell for the third consecutive quarter, pressed by high unemployment, stagnating disposable income and a broader crisis of confidence.

Hanging as a twin threat over this one-legged recovery are the prospect of an imminent rise in eurozone interest rates and Ms Merkel’s pledge to cut spending and raise taxes to restore the country’s public finances by 2007.

However, the recent news from France does come as a surprise. Economic data from France had been rather more encouraging lately, and thus the fact that French consumer spending on manufactured goods declined for a second successive month in October – down by 0.6 percent from September, when it fell a revised 0.3 percent – does come as something of a surprise, and is probably like a bucket of icy water over in Brussels and Paris, and, possibly more importantly, over at the ECB in Frankfurt.

It was only last Monday that Morgan Stanley economist Eric Chaney was taking IMF chief Rodigo Rato to taskfor the latter’s argument that “it would be good to see more internally driven recovery” before starting to normalise interest rates. Chaney took the opportunity to make a full-frontal-assault on what he calls “the legend that only exports explain euro area growth”.

“Since 2003, the contribution to growth of external trade has been constantly negative or null for the euro area, while almost constantly positive for Germany. The French GDP data out on November 18 are confirming this once again: French final domestic demand was up 0.9% in Q3 (3.5% SAAR), driven by strong consumption (0.7%Q despite a sharp drop in food consumption) and even stronger corporate capital spending (1.1%Q). ”

Now normally I would be agreeing with him, since as he says the ‘legend’ is derived from the fact that many analysts take Germany as a proxy for the euro area, and this can be deeply misleading. But this latest round of data counsel caution (and maybe some of that caution could have been reflected in Jean-Claude Trichet’s performance last Friday, at least if the Central banker’s job is to stay ahead of the curve it could have been). Lesson: don’t make yourself a hostage to fortune if you don’t want to end up being hoisted on your own pettard. (And Btw: Touché Señor Rato).

To Raise Or Not To Raise?

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European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet’s indication last Friday that eurozone interest rates are about to rise continues to make waves.

Yesterday the EU Observer had a piece indicating the Eurozone finance ministers were not amused, and today we have a retaliatory piece were Trichet explains theat the ECB is the ‘listening’ people bank, which is simply responding to citizen concern about ongoing price rises.

The FT made clear yesterday that the decision to raise just now was not going down well in Berlin, where the incoming government now faces the prospects of introducing a strict fiscal policy at a time of monetary tightening, and when the impact of the recent oil price rise is likely to be pinching the already pinched pocket of the German consumer.

Meantime, as the FT today explains, Trichet is feeling the heat, since he has come out and stated that the ” European Central Bank has no plans to implement a series of interest rates rises” (ie no US-style measured pace).

Plenty of material here for an Afoe post if I find the time later today.

Denationalise Tamiflu Immediately!

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The title is really an ironic (if somewhat affectionate) reference to this post from Brad DeLong. Reading the news this morning, it seems that Tamiflu may not be such an unambiguously good thing as it was being made out to be:

Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical group, on Thursday moved to reassure investors after US regulators said they would on Friday examine reports of up to 12 deaths and 75 cases of children who suffered health problems after using Tamiflu, the company’s anti-flu drug.

The US Food and Drug Administration said it was in “active communication” with regulators in Japan, the country with the widest use of Tamiflu for regular seasonal flu treatment, and where all the deaths and most of the other incidents of side-effects occurred.

I think a number of points could be made here. Firstly in this game there will be no free lunches. There are risks one way and there will be risks the other. Individuals may have to take decisions based on the best available information. Secondly, at the end of the day Tamiflu is not going to be virus-specific for any possible variant of avian flu simply because we don’t yet know the variant, so forward planning and risk assessment is inherently a complicated business here.

Lastly, when Brad said this: ” Low-probability but high-payoff projects are likely to be underfunded by the government–but properly funded by private companies willing to roll the dice. However, these ex ante considerations vanish ex post when an epidemic threatens…”, ( maybe I would say better rather than properly, but that’s a detail) – he was both right and wrong, IMHO, since the real issue which lies behind the argument is the moral hazard one. If you let the market regulate drug development, but then when you have a drug which is a big winner you immediately take it over, it isn’t clear that the market will work as well as you want it to next time round. On the other hand, governments can’t just stand back in the face of a real and present danger to their citizens. So I guess the only answer is negotiation and consensus, and maybe this consensus would include compensating those companies who are given the green light to go ‘full speed ahead’ if it turns out that – post ante – that decision was a bad one.

All in all a complex situation where prudence is indicated.

UK Growth and Inflation News

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The UK economy is still very much hanging in the balance between going up and going down IMHO. The latest BoE growth estimates, coupled with not especially good employment numbers, and indications that inflation may be coming down (and hence interest rates may follow) has caused a noteable pressure on the pound sterling. BoE governor Mervyn King has put it like this: there are “substantial risks” both to the outlook for inflation and growth. The risks are “broadly balanced” so that the eventual outturn is ” just as likely to be stronger or weaker than the forecast”.

Inflation in the UK has fallen for the first time in more than a year, increasing the chance that the next move in interest rates will be down. The annual consumer price index, which is the Bank of England’s target measure, fell from 2.5 per cent in September to a weaker-than-expected 2.3 per cent in October, according to official figures.
Source: Financial Times

Unemployment in the UK continued to rise in October, but there was little evidence of inflationary pressure on pay as the growth in average earnings and bonuses fell slightly, according to official figures published on Wednesday. The claimant count, which measures unemployment as those out of work and claiming benefit, increased by 12,100 to 890,100 in October, the ninth consecutive month it has nudged higher.
Source: Financial Times

More Growth In The Eurozone

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I think I’d better rephrase that: more overall growth, but a very mixed bag. In deriving aggregate numbers for the zone, four big economies really matter: Spain, France, Germany and Italy. Now each of these economies actually has different characteristics, so it is not clear what ‘the general picture’ means here.

Spain is the European economy whose current growth characteristic seem to resemble most those of the USA: above average growth (around 3.5% per annum), high dependency on housing and construction for the ‘extra growth’, high and rapidly growing private indebtedness (around 20% y-o-y) and a large current account deficit. Where Spain doesn’t resemble the US is in productivity, which has been more or less negative in recent years.

France is , as I’ve been suggesting, relatively ebullient despite the lack of all those labour reforms, and seems to be ‘on a roll’ at the moment. Driven by internal consumer demand and exports France managed an annualised 2.8% in the third quarter. Ironically, possibly France represents the big-four Eurozone economy with the most sustainable and balanced growth trajectory right now.

The German economy is growing at an unexpectedly high rate, but this extra-spurt is virtually all explained by the rapid increase in exports (helped of course by the fall in the euro).Investment, fuelled by the demand for all those exports, was also up. Meanhwile internal consumer demand is possibly even falling. (Growth in the third quarter was at an annual rate of 2.4% up from an annualised 0.8% in the second quarter).

And Italy, which as I keep mentioning is definitely now the ‘poor sister’ of the eurozone, with an identity crisis about what kind of economy it actually is, and a rapidly ageing population producing huge fiscal pressure. (On this see Morgan Stanley’s Vicenzo Guzzo yesterday). Italian growth actually bucked the trend in the third quarter and was lower than in the second quarter (dropping from a 2.8% annual rate to a 1.2% one).

All of this leaves me with the feeling: ‘Eurozone’ which eurozone?