Eurozone
Our manufacturing outlook for Europe has been revised downward. The uneven recession in the Eurozone is now coupled with a downturn in the Czech Republic and sharply falling economic activity in Poland. Domestic demand continues to soften. Businesses refrain from adding to capacity despite low cost...
Things are not moving up in Europe’s economic tables.
Income and employment continue to sag amid languishing business sentiment, unfinished recovery of the financial sector, and continued political malaise. The euro area’s GDP will finish 2013 down about ½ percent on the year before. The ECB’s...
The current state of the U.S. labor market is generating a significant conversation about the availability of skilled talent especially in light of the manufacturing renaissance underway. The creation and implementation of a sustainable pipeline of talent is integral to both human capital and...
Europe is struggling, again.
Cypriot banks are effectively insolvent and need about €17 bn (possibly more) to recover. The IMF can lend at most €10 bn because a higher amount would tip the country’s total debt to GDP ratio beyond sustainable levels (generally 110-120 percent of GDP). So, the...
There is a whiff of big dollars and big euros in the air of Washington and Brussels these days. And no, it’s not about the sequester or the Eurozone debts imploding. It’s about the European Union and the United States getting serious about signing on to a transatlantic free trade agreement (TAFTA...
The Eurozone will remain in recession for most of this year. We see only a gradual improvement in industrial sectors of the Eurozone this year. The feeble recovery that will follow is expected to drag on throughout 2014. Meanwhile, the Baltics, Slovakia and Poland have remained resilient in the...
European manufacturing is on a steep retrenchment course. It all started, paradoxically, just as financial markets stabilized in the wake of the European Central Bank’s “whatever-it-takes” moment this past summer. Since August, industrial production shed a total of about 3.5 percent in just three...
Europe muddled through the crisis in 2012 without advancing much toward its lasting resolution. The high point came mid-year (the “July moment”) when Mario Draghi, the ECB president, vowed to “do whatever it takes” to defend the euro. The markets calmed but national politicians struggled to find...
The near-term horizon for Europe looks cloudy.
Economic growth has slowed to a crawl across the EU and started falling in the Eurozone in the third quarter. Some countries have been mired in a recession for over a year, including Spain, Italy, and Portugal. Even central Europe has not been spared:...
MAPI Senior Economist Kris Bledowski sees continued malaise in manufacturing and construction in the Eurozone. Industrial production will fall some 2 percent this year and rise just under 1 percent in 2013. There are, however, large regional differences in economic performance. He reviews economic...