It was with Teutonic understatement that Robert Habeck noted economic conditions were “not satisfactory”. Germany’s economy minister was speaking on October 9th, just after official forecasts for the year had been revised from growth of 0.3% to a contraction of 0.2%. This would follow a 0.3% decline in output last year, meaning that Germany faces […]
Why are some countries rich and others poor? The question, full of childlike curiosity, is the most important in economics. A person’s living standards are mostly determined not by talent or hard work, but by when and where they were born. Historically, most models of economic growth focused on the accumulation of factors of production, […]
Nothing changes sentiment like price, according to one investing maxim. The world-weary saying reflects the fact that after a stockmarket surge speculators usually scramble for reasons to believe further price rises are on the way. The recent surge in the Chinese market is one such example. Source link
EIGHT-THIRTY in the morning on the first Friday of every month is a special time for bond traders: it’s when America’s Bureau of Labour Statistics usually releases its monthly jobs data. Despite the vast sums that some hedge funds spend on alternative data, landmark releases like the employment report or the consumer-price index (CPI) can […]
ALTHOUGH HIS bill has no chance of becoming law, Jared Golden, a congressman from Maine, delivered an important message last month when he introduced legislation to impose a 10% tariff on all imports into America. It is not just that Mr Golden is the author of the first formal attempt to act on Donald Trump’s […]
WHEN AID donors helped fund the Mozal aluminium smelter in Mozambique, the goal was to help that southern African country build up its economy after a civil war. In a country with income per head of just over $600, the Mozal smelter is the largest industrial employer. Yet now the lofty aim to help poor […]
THE FORECLOSURE and court auction of 87 flats in the southern city of Changsha last month underlines many of the problems with China’s property sector. The homes were owned by one woman, flouting the controls that Changsha and other cities have on the number of housing units urban dwellers can buy. The fact that one […]
Everybody loves a league table. Across areas as varied as sports, education and consumer goods, competitive rankings have a magnetic appeal. The question of what or who rose, fell or clinched the top spot can lend a sense of drama to even the most strait-laced subjects. Source link
Missiles are flying over a region that supplies a third of the world’s crude Source link
When Michel Barnier, France’s new prime minister, submits his budget to parliament on October 10th he will be doing so against a painful market backdrop. A fortnight ago the yield on French ten-year government debt surpassed that of Spain, suggesting that investors see the euro zone’s second-largest economy as riskier than its southern neighbour’s (see […]