Europe Economics Weekly Surveys still fairly upbeat, little progress on integration In our opinion, this week’s media coverage of the June EC and Ifo surveys was too downbeat. Both indicators are still consistent with annual GDP growth of over 2%. Other data told a familiar story of... 29th June 2018 · 1 min read
Nordic & Swiss Economics Weekly Swiss-EU talks at risk, Riksbank to signal Q4 rate rise The Swiss Government this week made no progress towards reaching a deal with Brussels that would see Switzerland retain its unrestricted access to the Single Market. With the anti-immigrant SVP party... 29th June 2018 · 1 min read
Nordic & Swiss Economics Weekly SNB dovish, Norges Bank hawkish, Sweden ETI strong This week’s quarterly policy statement from the Swiss National Bank strengthened our view that tighter monetary policy in Switzerland is a long way off. By contrast, higher interest rates are imminent... 22nd June 2018 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly Progress on Greece, ECB dovish, Ifo to offer comfort The big news this week was that Greece is finally emerging from a period of eight years under bailout programmes. But our judgement remains that the risks of a future Greek default and/or euro-zone... 22nd June 2018 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly What could upend the ECB’s plans? The ECB finally announced this week that the end of its asset purchase programme is in sight and that rates will stay on hold at least until the second half of 2019. But the ECB is not on auto-pilot... 15th June 2018 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly Mixed signals from Italy’s new government Italy’s new prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, gave his maiden speech to parliament this week, and his comments riled the markets. After all, he reiterated the Government’s intentions to cut taxes... 8th June 2018 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly Spain can cope without Rajoy but Italian politics still a worry In any other week, the imposition of tariffs on the EU by the US would have taken centre stage. But amid the political and market turmoil in Italy and the downfall of Spain’s government, this was no... 1st June 2018 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly Will the ECB’s hopes on growth be dashed? The “account” of the ECB’s April meeting, released this week, revealed that policymakers had taken a pretty sanguine view of the weakness of survey indicators and hard data in the first few months of... 25th May 2018 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly Is the slowdown in exports a sign of things to come? Data released this week added to the evidence that soft global demand and the previous appreciation of the euro have taken a toll on euro-zone exports. We doubt that exports will regain all of their... 18th May 2018 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly Macron’s first year bodes well for France One year into President Emmanuel Macron’s term, the French economy is performing well. Annual GDP growth is healthy and the labour market is recovering steadily. But this owes little to Macron’s... 11th May 2018 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly Did the euro-zone catch a cold in Q1? We think that temporary factors – including industrial action, cold weather and an outbreak of the flu – explain about 0.2 percentage points of the slowdown in quarterly euro-zone GDP growth from 0.7%... 4th May 2018 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly What do higher oil prices mean for euro-zone inflation? The upward revision to our 2018 oil price forecast means that the contribution from energy to headline inflation will be a bit bigger than we had previously assumed. But this effect is likely to be... 27th April 2018 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly Worries about Germany are overdone Developments in Germany this week have increased concerns that the euro-zone’s growth engine is really starting to sputter. But we think that some of these concerns are overdone. After all, recent... 20th April 2018 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly Where is the euro heading? The euro has been buffeted recently by concerns about protectionism, which have caused it to strengthen, and softer economic data, which have caused it to weaken. While the risks of an all-out trade... 13th April 2018 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly Is the euro-zone’s upturn screeching to a halt? The most recent official euro-zone data have been weak and the latest business surveys are consistent in their message that the economic expansion has lost momentum. A sanguine view of this is that... 6th April 2018 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly Economic strength keeps French fiscal reform on track Positive fiscal data have been something of a rarity in France in recent years, so President Emmanuel Macron will have welcomed the news earlier this week that the French budget deficit for 2017 was... 29th March 2018 · 1 min read
