Economic Comment
Na het verlies van de AAA-rating bij Standard & Poor’s kondigde president Sarkozy economische hervormingen aan. Afgelopen weekend maakte hij onder andere bekend het btw-tarief te willen verhogen.
Economic Comment
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) heeft afgelopen vrijdag de rating van negen eurozone landen verlaagd. Frankrijk, na Duitsland de tweede economie van de eurozone, verliest haar AAA-rating.
Economic Comment
November’s industrial production figure has been interpreted by some as proof that Germany’s economy dipped into the red in the final quarter of 2011. We still believe a recession is not a done deal yet.
Column
Terwijl de kritiek op de kredietverlening door banken aanhoudt, schrijft persbureau Reuters maandag dat grote bedrijven steeds vaker optreden als financier voor de banken. Het is de wereld op zijn kop.
Economic Comment
Some have taken Germany’s recent annual growth figure (3%) as a sign that the economy has contracted by 0.2%-0.3% in 11Q4. But this will only hold true if the data on the first three quarters are not revised, which may well be the case.
Economic Update Dutch version
The French economy showed its resilience in 11Q3, but we expect the negative effects of the debt crisis to become more visible in the coming months. There is no reason for much optimism.
Economic Update
In 11Q3, export growth managed to keep the Spanish economy out of recession. But the available economic data for 11Q4 point to GDP contraction in that quarter. For the first quarter of this year we also expect GDP to fall.
Economic Comment
Hungary’s government is becoming increasingly autocratic, thereby threatening to undo years of democracy-building, while simultaneously risking a sovereign default.
Economic Comment
The December manufacturing PMIs have surprised on the upside. We should take comfort that the deterioration in PMIs is nowhere close to what we witnessed at the height of the crisis in 2008-09.