Europe Economics Weekly ECB consensus building on policy normalisation While Russia-Ukraine tensions escalated further still this week, the economic spillovers to the euro-zone are likely to be limited and are therefore unlikely to change the ECB’s policy assessment... 18th February 2022 · 6 mins read
Europe Economics Update Replay of 2017 French election fears unlikely this time French President Macron is on course to win re-election in April by a comfortable margin, and is likely to push for a lower tax burden and pension reform in his second term. His main rival Marine Le... 18th February 2022 · 3 mins read
Global Markets Update The outlook for German and Swiss Government bonds We think that the gap between the yields of 10-year German and Swiss government bonds will re-emerge over the next couple of years as the ECB tightens policy more quickly than the SNB. In view of the... 17th February 2022 · 3 mins read
Europe Commercial Property Chart Pack Euro-zone all-property returns total almost 9% in 2021 Euro-zone commercial property markets ended 2021 on a stronger note. Prime rental growth picked up in the office and industrial sectors, while retail rents held steady for the third consecutive... 17th February 2022 · 9 mins read
Europe Economics Update The Ukraine crisis and the euro-zone revisited While the simmering tensions over Ukraine could keep euro-zone inflation higher for longer than most expect, we think that it is unlikely to put the ECB off plans to start normalising policy this year... 16th February 2022 · 4 mins read
Europe Data Response Euro-zone Industrial Production (Dec.) The rise in euro-zone industrial production in December took it above its pre-pandemic level and timelier evidence points to a small increase at the start of this year. But input shortages remain... 16th February 2022 · 2 mins read
Europe Economics Update Rising wage inflation will embolden ECB hawks The tightening of labour market conditions in the euro-zone is likely to help push hourly wage growth up over the next couple of years to more than 3% y/y by 2023. This will serve to strengthen the... 16th February 2022 · 4 mins read
Europe Data Response Euro-zone GDP & Employment (Q4) The small increase in euro-zone GDP in Q4 confirms that the region’s economy was struggling at the end of 2021. But with Omicron under control and restrictions being eased, we expect the recovery to... 15th February 2022 · 2 mins read
Europe Commercial Property Update Will prime rents offer inflation protection? Our forecasts suggest that prime all-property rental growth across the main euro-zone markets is likely to keep pace with inflation in the coming years. However, this is more of a reflection of... 14th February 2022 · 3 mins read
Europe Data Response German Inflation (January) The upside surprise to Germany’s headline inflation rate in January was mostly due to higher energy prices rather than rising underlying inflation. Nonetheless, core inflation of 2.9% is well above... 11th February 2022 · 2 mins read
Europe Economics Update Lessons from Europe’s past wage-price spirals While there are limits to the lessons we can draw from the past, Europe’s experiences since World War Two provide some guidance as to the outlook for wages and inflation. They suggest that the recent... 10th February 2022 · 4 mins read
Europe Economics Update Will ECB tightening cause a fresh crisis? Any policy tightening by the ECB in 2022-23 will probably be too limited to cause major problems in the bond market. But if interest rates rise much further than we anticipate, that could trigger... 9th February 2022 · 4 mins read
Europe Economics Update How big a problem are higher interest rates for Italy? Our base case is that monetary tightening by the ECB results in a manageable rise in Italy’s government bond yields. We think it would take 10-year yields rising to 5% or more to bring debt... 9th February 2022 · 4 mins read
Europe Chart Pack Shift in ECB stance poses risks to the bond market Both we and the market are now discounting 100bp of ECB rate hikes by the end of 2023. And given the sequencing set out by Christine Lagarde, it seems likely that net asset purchases will end in Q3... 8th February 2022 · 12 mins read
Europe Data Response German Industrial Production (December) The small decline in production in December was not quite as bad as it looks because it was largely due to a fall in construction activity, but 2021 was still a terrible year for German manufacturers... 7th February 2022 · 2 mins read
Europe Economics Weekly A hawk in owl’s clothing Highly-indebted euro-zone governments look better placed to cope with tighter monetary policy than they were when the ECB last raised interest rates, in 2011. In most cases, governments’ interest... 4th February 2022 · 6 mins read
