Currency War Series

Egypt Devaluation Positive, Economic Challenges Remain 

Mar 21, 2016 09:36 am UTC| Commentary Economy Central Banks

Decisions by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) last week, including a devaluation of the Egyptian pound, are broadly credit positive but the country faces a difficult year of slower growth, high inflation and large financing...

Renminbi Series

Renminbi series: Chinese property market, recovering or overheating?

Mar 21, 2016 08:59 am UTC| Commentary Real Estate Economy

Since mid-last year, property prices in China is going through steady rise in prices. According to latest data overall property prices are up 3.6% in February. This price rise has been steady since mid of last year and...

Explainer: how company versus personal tax cuts boost the economy

Mar 21, 2016 04:21 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy

Suppose the government had about A$10 billion a year to fund lower income tax. It could reduce personal income tax by about 6%, or lower each marginal rate by about 1.5 percentage points. Alternatively it could reduce...

Wage pressures remain very weak in the Eurozone

Mar 18, 2016 15:08 pm UTC| Commentary Economy

Data released from Eurostat showed on Friday that Eurozones labor costs growth increased modestly to 1.3% y/y in the fourth quarter of 2015 after easing in the previous two quarters. The 0.2 percentage point improvement...

Why a drop in unemployment doesn't add up – literally

Mar 17, 2016 23:18 pm UTC| Insights & Views Economy

Unemployment has decreased, according to the latest figures. Here is a question: if the unemployment rate drops, is everyone happy? Suppose that, in a very small country, 380 people are either working or would like to...

Emerging Market Crisis Series

The BRICs: battered, regressive, incompetent, and corrupt?

Mar 17, 2016 22:36 pm UTC| Insights & Views Economy

Theres an old joke about Brazil that suggests that its the country of the future and it always will be. For a while this looked to be an anachronistic, possibly racist stereotype that had been decisively overturned by...

US homebuilding continues on modestly positive course

Mar 17, 2016 06:09 am UTC| Commentary Economy Real Estate

US housing starts in February increased 58k units to 1,178k, surpassing expectations of a moderate increase to 1,150k. Data for the previous two months have been revised to add 37k units to the overall tally. The...