The UK National Institute of Economic and Social Research suggest in a report published today that the U.K. economy may have grown at the slowest pace in almost four years in the second quarter.
Growth was probably 0.3 percent in three months through June, compared with 0.4 percent in the first quarter, the London-based [...]

There is a pretty mixed bag of numbers coming in at the moment. The German economy shows some signs of a recovery of activity (here), as is the French one (here). It is important to understand however that trend growth in Germany is now extremely low, and the economy is very export dependent. The [...]

The latest survey by the British Retail Consortium suggests that retail sales declined in the UK for the third month in a row in June. This is definitely one to watch carefully.
Sales in stores open at least a year fell 0.5 percent compared with June 2004, the London-based lobby group said today. The drop followed [...]

Sorry if I’m belabouring a rather obscure and generally ‘non-sexy’ issue: government debt in the eurozone. If I am doing this it is because I think something important is happening. I missed this point during the week.
Fitch Ratings on Wednesday lowered to negative its credit rating outlooks for Italy and Portugal ? both among the [...]

Last year 700,000 new homes were built in Spain. A record number, and one which seems disproportionately high for Spains real future housing needs. In all likelihood the Spanish property market will one day crash, and prices drop considerably from their current highs. But what if they don’t? What if we ‘merely’ get a soft [...]

John Snow obviously had had sight of the document ( and here pdf ) when he went round lecturing us that Europe may become a non-favoured environment for US FDI:
“Foreign investment in France and Germany fell sharply in 2004, reinforcing concerns that inflexible labour practices and weak domestic demand are driving investors elsewhere.
In France, inward [...]

Italy’s crisis rumbles on, and I don’t expect it to get much better any time soon. This week we learn that Italian retail sales fell sharply in April,

After adjustment for seasonal factors, retail sales in April were down 0.8 percent on the previous month ? the steepest month-on-month fall since May 2004. Compared with a [...]

Hotel prices in Spain remained in May at 2004 levels according to a National Statistics Institute (INE) report today. This could be a significant reading if price inflation in fact is disappearing from the sector. As the report notes, most of the recent increase in business has come from Spanish nationals. [...]

Paul Krugman has on occassion suggested ironically that Bagdad was only for the boys, that the ‘real men’ would go to Teheran. Well here’s another of those ‘real men’ in the economics field: Paul Betts writing in the FT, with one of those delicious ‘wingnut’ arguments:
“A dose of sado-monetary policy from the European Central Bank [...]

One of the few real IMF success stories, the Turkish economy continues with what Serhan Cevik calls its spectacular normality:
The Turkish economy is now in its fourth year of uninterrupted growth, with an average real GDP growth rate of 7.5% per annum. Indeed, the trend growth rate surged from 3.9% in the 1990s to [...]