Africa Economics Weekly BIG a non-starter, rand on the rocks, Hichilema hired The South African authorities appear to be devoting increased attention to the idea of a permanent basic income grant (“BIG”) but, in practice, such proposals are probably dead on arrival. Meanwhile... 20th August 2021 · 6 mins read
Asia Economics Update Malaysia: major challenges await new PM Malaysia’s new prime minister, Ismail Sabri Yaakob, takes over an economy poised to rebound strongly from the COVID-19 pandemic. But the new government looks ill-equipped to deal with the many long... 20th August 2021 · 4 mins read
China Economics Weekly Growth jitters, tech woes, Huarong lifeline There was plenty for China watchers to digest during the past week. Weak data for July added to growth fears, with virus disruptions and tighter credit conditions meaning that worse is still to come... 20th August 2021 · 4 mins read
Emerging Markets Economics Update Emerging Markets Capital Flows Monitor Net capital outflows from major emerging markets have picked up sharply over the past couple of weeks, driven by virus concerns, growing expectations that the Fed will begin tapering asset purchases... 20th August 2021 · 2 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update RBNZ may delay hiking until May The recent reimposition of the strictest level of lockdown in New Zealand was enough to prevent the RBNZ from hiking rates in August. And our assumption that restrictions will now remain in place... 20th August 2021 · 4 mins read
Emerging Europe Data Response Poland Activity Data (Jul.) Polish industrial production continued to expand at a solid pace in July while retail sales fell as the re-opening of the economy shifted spending away from goods. The big picture is that the economy... 20th August 2021 · 2 mins read
UK Economics Retail Sales & Public Finances (Jul.) While there was good news on public borrowing, the slump in retail sales added to other evidence indicating that in July the economic recovery slowed to a crawl. 20th August 2021 · 3 mins read
Nordic & Swiss Data Response Norway GDP (Q2 & Jun. 2021) The release of Q2 GDP data from Norway this morning confirmed that the mainland economy came within a whisker of re-gaining its pre-virus level in June. Growth is set to accelerate in Q3. 20th August 2021 · 2 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly RBNZ to delay tightening until next year A fresh lockdown upended the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s plan to raise interest rates this week. Given that the latest virus outbreak is driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, we suspect... 20th August 2021 · 6 mins read
India Economics Weekly The broad contours of policy normalisation We’ve argued for some time that the RBI is in no rush to join several of its emerging market peers in tightening monetary policy, a view that has been reinforced by the dovish commentary in the latest... 20th August 2021 · 3 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Drag from emergency measures fading While new virus cases and hospitalisations have hit record-highs this week, the rebound in services consumption in Q2 suggests that households are getting increasingly blasé about state of emergency... 20th August 2021 · 4 mins read
Capital Daily Assessing the risk to Treasuries from tapering The muted reaction in the Treasury market following the release of the minutes of last month’s FOMC meeting may seem surprising given the revelation that most participants thought it could be... 19th August 2021 · 6 mins read
Latin America Chart Pack Inflation risks growing Inflation is at, or close to, multi-year highs across Latin America which has prompted a slew of interest rate hikes across the region. We think that central banks in Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Peru... 19th August 2021 · 14 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Weekly Gulf and oil prices, Egypt remittances, PIF’s Call of Duty The latest drop back in oil prices is unlikely to be of much concern to policymakers in the Gulf and we still think that there is a window of opportunity for fiscal policy to be loosened. Elsewhere... 19th August 2021 · 6 mins read
China Economics Update Inequality moves up the CPC’s agenda China’s leadership has signalled a growing focus on reducing inequality. This could boost the productivity of low-income households and speed up the long-touted rebalancing toward consumption. But, if... 19th August 2021 · 4 mins read
Emerging Markets Economics Chart Pack Asia bucks the monetary policy trend Several EM central banks have continued to tighten monetary policy over the past month or so in response to strong reopening rebounds (Chile, Czech Republic, Hungary) and/or rising inflation concerns... 18th August 2021 · 10 mins read
