Filtered by Subscriptions: Europe Economics Use setting Europe Economics
Net immigration to the euro-zone has been very high in recent years, and the risks are skewed towards it exceeding the European Commission’s projection of 0.3% per year over the long term. The historical trend suggests it could average 0.4%-0.5% while a …
28th March 2025
It is becoming clear that President Trump’s actions are driven by both his fixation on reducing the US trade deficit and his transactional approach to dealing with other countries. So, even though the Trump administration’s ideas to transform the entire …
25th March 2025
The Trump administration’s efforts to end to the war in Ukraine have raised the prospect of sanctions relief for Russia. This Focus outlines the main sanctions in place and the macroeconomic impact lifting them could have. While US sanctions relief …
20th March 2025
The rise in defence spending that looks likely in many countries over the next few years will boost demand and output, albeit by less than the headline-grabbing figures might suggest. Meanwhile, higher defence spending could give a significant boost to …
13th March 2025
While some Russian pipeline gas flows into the EU could resume as part of any Ukraine-Russia peace deal, at most such supplies would probably only recover to about a quarter of pre-invasion levels. From an energy price perspective, the looming ramp-up …
24th February 2025
We expect Germany’s next government to reform the national fiscal rule to allow some tax cuts and increased public investment. But it is likely to make slow progress on structural reforms such as digitalisation and improving the environment for start-ups. …
4th February 2025
EU policymakers have stepped up their calls for progress towards Capital Markets Union and there will be steps in that direction in the coming years. But we aren’t holding our breath for major change. And even if policymakers do more than we anticipate, …
31st January 2025
Developments over the past year have put France’s public debt on a steeper upward path, with the debt ratio now likely to rise from 113% of GDP last year to around 126% by 2030. We see little chance of a sustained fiscal consolidation in the coming years …
21st January 2025
The Shape of the Fractured World in 2025 The share of the fracturing global economy that is accounted for by China and its geopolitical allies contracted in 2024, leaving it under a third the size of the US bloc at the start of 2025. This fall was in part …
17th January 2025
Donald Trump’s second term could redraw the global geopolitical map. A sustainable “Grand Bargain” with China, warmer relations with Russia, or a breakdown in the relationship between the US and its traditional allies could each reshape supply chains and …
7th January 2025
The price of natural gas in Europe was thrust into the spotlight during Europe’s energy crisis and remains a key political and industrial pressure point. In short, we expect natural gas prices in the EU to halve over the coming years as global LNG …
10th December 2024
One of the many problems that the next German government will have to contend with is the struggling car sector. Unfortunately, the sector’s challenges are only likely to intensify given the prospect of sluggish European demand, rising competition from …
27th November 2024
We discussed the global impact of higher tariffs in a Drop-In on Tuesday, 26th November. Click here to watch the 20-minute online briefing. In this Focus, we construct a framework to explore the channels through which an import tariff works, which we use …
25th November 2024
Our base case is that protectionist policies from the US next year will have only a small economic impact on Europe, but the fallout will vary between countries and there are risks of greater damage if the trade conflict escalates. Meanwhile, the EU will …
22nd November 2024
Poor economic growth and vulnerability to structural change in the office and retail sector are set to weigh on German property returns in the coming years. But solid rental prospects in the residential sector mean it remains a compelling candidate for …
23rd October 2024
After falling to 1.8% in September, headline inflation in the euro-zone is almost certain to rise in the final few months of 2024. But we think that falling oil and natural gas prices will cause it to drop back again next year and average about 1.5% in …
3rd October 2024
Getting an early steer on whether an economy has entered recession requires a holistic assessment of a variety of indicators to see if multiple variables are flagging recession at the same time. In this vein, we have created Economic Momentum Indicators …
9th September 2024
We suspect that the boost to euro-zone economic growth from interest rate cuts over the next year or two will be quite small. The ECB is likely to lower its policy rates only gradually and leave them well above pre-Covid levels. So borrowing costs in the …
7th August 2024
Donald Trump has said that he could quickly end the war in Ukraine if he is re-elected as US President. This Focus answers key questions on what the shape of any agreement might look like, what might happen to sanctions on Russia, and the possible …
23rd July 2024
Fiscal policy has become almost as fraught in Germany as it is in France and Italy, but rather than from a desire to run very loose fiscal policy, Germany’s woes stem from its strict “debt brake”. Some loosening of the debt brake is likely in the coming …
In the coming years, we expect Europe to raise barriers to trade and investment with China but to do so in a targeted and gradual manner. If so, there would be big implications for some sectors, including electric vehicles and renewable technologies, but …
7th June 2024
Germany’s manufacturing sector has been in relative decline since around 2017. We think it will continue to shrink in the coming years and expect productivity growth in the sector to remain relatively low by past standards. As a result, the sector’s …
18th April 2024
The ECB looks set to cut rates in June, reducing the deposit rate from 4% to 3.75%, and we think it will follow that up with rate reductions at every remaining meeting this year . The pace of cuts might slow next year as policymakers feel their way …
16th April 2024
The recent weakness of Germany’s economy is partly due to temporary factors which should ease this year. However, demographic and structural headwinds, partly driven by global fragmentation, mean the economy is likely to grow by little more than half a …
19th March 2024
Productivity in the euro-zone has been falling for well over a year. We think this is largely because it was unsustainably high in mid-2022 as many companies struggled to fill vacancies. Since then, it has fallen to more manageable levels. The decline in …
12th March 2024
We survey 12 major advanced economy housing markets to understand why house price falls have been small despite high starting points and sharp increases in mortgage rates. We then use this information to ascertain whether the correction in house prices is …
14th February 2024
After years of fiscal largesse, austerity is back. We suspect that budget cuts will reduce euro-zone GDP growth by only around 0.1 or 0.2 percentage points per year over the next five years. But the EU’s budget rules will require some countries to tighten …
1st February 2024
Household consumption in the euro-zone looks set for another bad year. We think that it will be broadly flat in the first half of 2024, keeping overall GDP growth close to zero for the next few quarters. It might start to pick up in Q3 and beyond, but a …
12th January 2024
The goal of keeping government debt ratios stable or falling means that many euro-zone countries will need to tighten fiscal policy substantially and some will need to run primary budget surpluses for a long time to come. Italy has the most challenging …
19th December 2023
During the past decade, the global economy has transitioned out of an era in which globalisation was the key driver of economic and financial relationships into one shaped by geopolitics. Previously, most governments had believed that closer economic …
16th November 2023
The Riksbank’s request for a capital injection from the government is not a good look for an independent central bank. But its QE-related losses will be smaller than those of many other central banks: the “bailout” is required because of its accounting …
3rd November 2023
The prospect of a long period of high bond yields and some signs of fiscal slippage by Prime Minister Meloni’s government have worsened the outlook for public finances in Italy. We now think the debt ratio is likely to increase rather than to fall in the …
1st November 2023
In contrast to the past few years, when the risks to the euro-zone inflation outlook have been consistently skewed to the upside, those risks now look more balanced. So in this Focus , we explore the downside risks and how the ECB might respond to them. …
12th October 2023
When the ECB Governing Council announces the results of its operational review later this year, it is likely to say it will continue to use the deposit rate as its key policy tool . We also expect the ECB to establish a new framework for lending reserves …
12th September 2023
Tighter monetary policy has had a big impact on financial conditions in the euro-zone, but we think its effect on activity is still in its early stages . Even if the region falls into a mild recession, it will be some time before policymakers are …
26th July 2023
House prices in the euro-zone have fallen sharply and further declines seem quite likely. This will weigh on construction activity and household consumption, both of which are already weak, and contribute to the euro-zone remaining in recession over the …
5th July 2023
We expect euro-zone food inflation to fall sharply over the coming year due to the large declines in agricultural and energy commodity prices. But history suggests that the level of food prices rarely falls very far or for very long. With labour costs …
26th June 2023
We think that lower commodity prices and improved global supply conditions will bring euro-zone services inflation down from 5% in May to about 3.5% by the middle of next year. Further falls seem likely after that, but the tight labour market means that …
6th June 2023
Note: We discussed our revamped FCIs and took your questions on global financial conditions in a 20-minute online briefing on Thursday, 20 th April . Watch the recording here . We have revamped our financial conditions indices (FCIs) for advanced …
18th April 2023
Q uantitative tightening and the repayment of TLTROs mean that the ECB’s assets are likely to decline by around one quarter by the end of 2024. We expect the repayment of TLTROs to have a negligible macroeconomic impact. QT should also proceed smoothly, …
20th February 2023
The shift away from variable towards fixed-rate mortgages in many European countries over the past 15 years means that it will take longer than in the past for interest rate hikes by the ECB to feed through to household interest expenditure. This …
23rd January 2023
Next year will be characterised by falling headline inflation, which should help to prevent interest rate expectations and bond yields from rising much further. But we also expect core inflation to remain above 2% for some time. As a result, we think …
17th November 2022
We think the euro-zone will soon fall into recession as high inflation, tighter monetary policy and weak global growth take their toll. While the economy should recover next year, the rebound will be held back by a lack of policy support. What’s more, we …
11th August 2022
An end to Russian gas exports to Europe would prompt us to forecast a deeper recession in the euro-zone this winter than we currently anticipate. The hit would come partly through higher inflation, which would further squeeze real incomes, and partly …
9th August 2022
We are revising up our forecast for core inflation in the euro-zone because the labour market is tighter, demand stronger and inflation expectations higher than we had anticipated. Moreover, fiscal policy will be tightened only gradually and there are …
27th June 2022
Equilibrium real interest rates in the euro-zone appear to be below zero and lower than in most other advanced economies. We expect them to stay that way. While the ECB is likely to raise interest rates sooner and further than most economists expect, this …
3rd May 2022
This month’s French presidential election no longer looks like the shoo-in for incumbent Emmanuel Macron that it did only a few weeks ago. Right-wing nationalist Marine Le Pen’s chances have risen sharply over the past week or so and a surprise victory …
8th April 2022
We estimate that euro-zone governments’ fiscal deficits will be around 1% higher than expected this year, as a result of the war in Ukraine, mostly due to government subsidies for energy, support for refugees and higher defence spending. This will soften …
29th March 2022
We expect the ECB to interpret a period of above-target inflation as “transient” even if it lasts for well over a year. Although it will end its emergency PEPP programme next March, we think the Bank will step up the pace of its conventional asset …
15th November 2021
The UN’s annual climate change conference, COP26, will not have any discernible impact on Norway’s intention to keep pumping oil and gas over the coming decades. The irony is that Norway’s success in handling its resource windfall means that it is well …
10th November 2021
