MADRID | Three years have passed since the US took hold in mid-2009 of something of an economic recovery. The green in the green shoots has been paler than first thought, though. JP Morgan analysts in Spain released today a note saying that, by GDP per capita standards, we are witnesses of the weakest rebound the US has lived since World War Second. In the JP Morgan chart, populations has…
By CaixaBank research team, in Barcelona | The upswing exceeded expectations with a first quarter GDP that grew by 1.0% quarter-on-quarter and 2.6% year-on-year. This momentarily places Japan at the head of advanced economies in terms of growth. However, the forecast for the whole of 2012 hardly reaches 2.5%, as the composition of the national accounts raises doubts regarding the sustainability of the upswing. Unusually, the growth of the first…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | Peeking into Japanese modern economic history is a must for most Europeans, since we are plunging into the same mud waters that country has gone through for twenty years. Japan seems to have succeeded in leaving the 1990 crisis behind, a crunch not altogether different from our predicament. On the positive side, there is the fact that now we know it could have returned…
LONDON | Jobless rates gave Monday a nasty reminder of an ongoing credit crisis whose effects seem to have depressed further the economies in the developed countries. The euro area (EA17) seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 10.8% in February 2012, compared with 10.7% a month earlier. It was 10.0% in February 2011. The EU27 unemployment rate was 10.2% in February 2012, compared with 10.1% in January. It was 9.5% in February 2011. The statistical…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | The United Kingdom learnt this week that in 2011 its economy grew by 0.4%, leaving the level of real GDP at 4.1% below the maximum point reached before the recession. The Bank of England, theoretically, has put in place successive programmes of monetary expansion, but what it has achieved is a rise in inflation up to 5%. Meanwhile, many blame budget cuts for the deficit of…
By Fernando González Urbaneja, in Madrid | Explaining the Spanish public deficit problem in 2012 in terms of confrontation between the government of Mariano Rajoy and Brussels is wrong and misleading. So far Brussels has not penalised members who do not meet their programmes, but has rather come to help achieve the objective, with more or less enthusiasm and more or less requirements imposed. Brussels may begin proceedings for an excessive…
LONDON | After the earthquake hit, the longer-term worry for both the equity market and the economy was that earnings power of Japanese companies had been severely damaged. But Investment house Schroders released Friday a note saying the worse scenario has been averted. Shogo Maeda, Head of Japanese Equities, confirmed that “corporate earnings have shown, and are further expected to show, a significant comeback during 2011. Corporate Japan continues to advance as historically high levels…
The EU is not closing the persistent gap with global innovation leaders US, Japan and South Korea. The European Commission on Tuesday published the results of its Innovation Union Scoreboard, which includes innovation indicators and trend analyses for the EU 27 Member States, as well as for Croatia, Iceland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey, and also compares a more reduced set of indicators between the…