The figures issued by the Bank of Spain have confirmed what we could already see with the naked eye; namely that Spaniards are losing their fear of the future and spending again. After several years of austerity, the consumers in Spain have gradually loosened their purse strings over the past year. And to such an extent that consumer spending rose 3.1% in 2015, almost tripling the 1.2% registered a year earlier.
SAO PAULO | By Marcus Nunes | In “Mind the (spending) gap,” Atif Mian and Amir Sufi of Princeton and Chicago, respectively, are on the right track but go about it the wrong way and so arrive at a wrong conclusion. They wonder: We all know that households cut back on spending dramatically during the Great Recession. Are they spending now? Has spending caught up to the trend the United States was on before?
LONDON | It might prove to be a time bomb for British high streets: one in five people aged between 18 and 44 are still trapped in debt they incurred in to cover consumption last Christmas. Research from Halifax shows that 14% of people are still paying for Christmas either on a credit card, through their overdraft or via a loan. However, fewer of the older generation are in the red…