Guan Qingyou via Caixin | The Chinese central bank’s decisions to trim banks’ reserve-requirement ratios and benchmark interest rates this year have all coincided with bad news, so it was hardly surprising that it would make cuts again on October 23, shortly after the National Bureau of Statistics said the country’s GDP growth rate for the third quarter fell to 6.9 percent.
BARCLAYS | The results of Sunday’s general election in Argentina have forced a run-off on November 22. Defying the opinion polls, with 97% of votes counted, Mauricio Macri (34.33%) finished very close to Daniel Scioli (36.86%). The two political adversaries have very different economic agendas.
Car production in Spain rose 26.7% in September, as the country’s automotive plants assembled about 9,000 vehicles per day, their highest production level since April 2008.
BARCLAYS | The 13th Five Year Plan (13FYP), the first to be produced under President Xi’s leadership, covers the period 2016 – 20. Despite some recent policy ‘hiccups’, we believe that the Chinese government remains committed to further reform and opening up of the economy.
PARIS | Francesco Saraceno | I was puzzled by Daniel Gros’ recent Project Syndicate piece, in which he claims that Germany’s dominance of the EMU may be coming to an end. Gros’ argument is based on two facts. The first is the slowing growth rate of Germany; the second, more geo-political, is the lack of willingness (or of capacity) to manage, the crises that face the EU (in particular the refugees crisis).
Fernando Barciela | Passos Coelho won the elections in Portugal with 38.6% of the vote, but lost his majority in parliament. Even though he has been tasked with forming a new government, Portuguese left parties have adopted a pragmatic approach which makes an agreement between the Socialist Party, Communist Party and Bloco de Esquerda increasingly likely. For the time being, they have already appointed Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, a socialist, as the President of the parliament.
Yang Gang via Caixin | China also has second-most household wealth after the United States, according to an annual report by researchers at Credit Suisse Group, a leading global financial services company.
James Alexander via Historinhas | Yet again today we saw the “zero (long and variable) lags” in monetary policy. Central bankers moving markets and thus changing NGDP Expectations happens all the time. It’s perfectly rational too.
Nick Malkoutzis via Macropolis | Bickering, confusion, delayed decisions on voting procedure, a temporary truce and a camper van: This is more or less the sum total of what the New Democracy leadership race has produced so far.
The amount of unemployed people in Spain – the country’s biggest problem – fell below 5 million in the third quarter of the year, for the first time since 2011. The jobless rate dropped 1.19 percentage points to 21.18%, while the employment rate rose 1%. But the improvement is exclusively due to temporary work contracts.