Spain’s pensions ‘nest egg’ is bleeding cash. Figures show this. But when included in a ranking which compares it with other countries, then the result is even worse. The Social Security’s Reserve Fund has gone from 67th place in the world ranking of pension funds by volume of assets to not even being in the top 100, explains BS Markets.
Hu Shuli via Caixin | China has overhauled its fiscal budgeting process several times since the late 1970s by adjusting how local and central governments share public service cost responsibilities. Now, top policymakers have released new guidelines that reflect a determination to push forward long-overdue government spending reforms.
UBS | Post 2008, there is evidence that real growth has slowed down on a trend basis. Long-term expectation s of inflation have also fallen globally. In the long run and beyond cyclical swings, earnings growth is also likely to decline on average from pre-crisis norms of 10-11% to ca. 6 -7% in Europe and the US (in our estimates).
James Alexander via Historinhas | It’s taken a while but the evidence is now in. Euro Area NGDP growth has overtaken US NGDP growth. Congratulations to the ECB, commiserations to the Fed. Go Europe!
BoAML | As the impeachment is no longer an obstacle for President Michel Temer’s government to go ahead with its economic agenda, we believe focus will likely shift back to the timing of the presentation of reforms and the start of the monetary policy easing cycle.
via Macropolis | The four core Greek banks released their second quarter (Q2) results in the last two days of August, which showed improving trends in core revenues as well as encouraging signs on the loan quality evolution.
Caixin | Late summer and early autumn is traditionally a hot season for property sales in China. In 30 major cities, August property sales by floor space increased 27 %year-on-year to 22.9 million square meters, according to E-House China R&D Institute.
Eliot Assoudeh | The core ideological tenets of populist radical-right parties—nativism, authoritarianism and populism—exist in conflict with liberal values. Britain leaving the EU was the most recent achievement of populist far-right parties in Europe.
J.L. M. Campuzano (Spanish Banking Association) | This week the European Commission published its 2016 Consumer Markets Scoreboard which reflects consumers’ ratings of how 42 goods and services markets work. This data shows that markets performance has improved since the last time a similar survey was done in 2014.
The start of the ECB’s corporate debt purchasing programme has fuelled a significant rise in issuances in the primary market, with a substantial reduction in interest rates in these placements. In this context, the French firm Sanofi and Germany’s Henkel have become the first European companies to place their debt at negative rates.