Middle East & North Africa Economics Focus Gulf overheating fears haven't disappeared Recently announced plans in the Gulf countries to ease fiscal policy to counter the global downturn could lead to renewed fears of overheating in the region. Our core inflation measures suggest that... 18th February 2013 · 1 min read
UK Economics Update Raising interest rates would be a big mistake We are approaching the fourth anniversary of official interest rates reaching a record low of just 0.5% in March 2009 and concerns have been growing about the damage caused by such a prolonged period... 18th February 2013 · 1 min read
Asia Economics Weekly What lies ahead for Asia’s sovereign-bond yields? Having trended lower since the 2008-2009 global crisis, Emerging Asia’s government bond yields have risen so far this year. In this Weekly , we examine the reasons for the pick-up and the outlook for... 18th February 2013 · 1 min read
Japan Economics Weekly Growing risk of disappointment from new-look BoJ The government is due to announce its nominee for Bank of Japan Governor in the next few days, with expectations running high that the successful candidate will set policy-making on a new course. The... 18th February 2013 · 1 min read
Europe Economics Weekly GDP slump underlines currency threat While the export-driven slump in euro-zone GDP in Q4 did not itself reflect the strength of the euro exchange rate, it further underlined the economy’s vulnerability to the currency’s recent... 18th February 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Weekly Considerable economic slack dampening inflation We think that the Bank of Canada has been underestimating the amount of slack in the economy, which explains why its recent quarterly inflation forecasts have erred on the high side. Looking ahead... 18th February 2013 · 1 min read
US Economics Weekly Currency wars and cash hoarding concerns overblown All the recent talk of currency wars is overdone and holds few implications for the US economy. The rise in the dollar against the yen has just been offset by a fall against the euro. The dollar trade... 18th February 2013 · 1 min read
UK Economics Weekly MPC passes the baton The MPC demonstrated quite clearly last week that it doesn’t have to wait for the new Governor to arrive to put flexible inflation-targeting into action. But Mervyn King continued to sound defeatist... 18th February 2013 · 1 min read
UK Economics Update Should we be worried about inflation expectations? The anchoring of inflation expectations is seen as one of the great successes of the current inflation targeting regime and is enabling the MPC to take a more flexible approach to meeting the target... 15th February 2013 · 1 min read
US Data Response Uni. of Mich. Consumer Confidence (Feb.) The rise in the University of Michigan measure of consumer confidence to 76.3 in February, from 73.8, probably reflects a mixture of better news on the labour market and the continued rally in stock... 15th February 2013 · 1 min read
US Data Response Industrial Prod. (Jan.) & Empire State Index (Feb.) There’s no need to be concerned by the fall in manufacturing output in January. The improvement in the survey evidence and the slightly better global backdrop actually mean that industrial conditions... 15th February 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Data Response Survey of Manufacturing (Dec.) December's disappointing 3.1% m/m drop in manufacturing sales more than offset the previous month's rebound and suggests that industrial production faltered at the end of last year. Overall, the risks... 15th February 2013 · 1 min read
UK Data Response Retail Sales (Jan.) January’s surprise fall in the official measure of retail sales volumes has brought the recent run of better economic news to an abrupt end. While most of this weakness appears to have reflected the... 15th February 2013 · 1 min read
US Housing Market Update Are house prices gains in some States unsustainable? Concerns have been raised that some States are seeing unsustainable, investor-fuelled house price increases. However, we think that in most of these markets, the fundamentals are supportive of a... 15th February 2013 · 1 min read
Africa Economics Update Fears over a return to "original sin" are overdone An improvement in global risk appetite and a sharp fall in emerging market bond yields over the past few months have led to a flurry of planned eurobond issues from countries in sub-Saharan Africa... 15th February 2013 · 1 min read
UK Commercial Property Focus When will the commercial property deleveraging end? Lenders have already made substantial progress in reducing the stock of commercial property loans on their books. But there is more to do and net lending flows are likely to remain negative for some... 15th February 2013 · 1 min read
