Economy in Brief: 2024

Making monetary policy in a 20-country union was never going to be easy. And coming out of a global pandemic was not going to make it any easier. But the problems faced by the ECB, the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve and others have common roots linked to polices to deal with the Covid crisis, the impact of Covid on global output, trade, and supply chains, the war in Ukraine and the elevated rate of inflation that has left most major money center countries with inflation above their respective targets.

In this situation, central banks have been trying to find the sweet spot for policy. Central bankers have been missing their inflation targets for three years - consistently. And while the Covid crisis disrupted growth and elevated unemployment (some places much more than others). Unemployment rates have returned to their pre-Covid lows or better, and yet inflation is still above target. In the 1980s and 1990s, we know what central banks would have done but these central banks are not those central banks. The names are the same, but the policies have been shifted to reflect different policy priorities.

EMU The euro area is a good example of all this; inflation has been over target since 2021 and the unemployment rate in the euro area has never been lower. And yet, this week, the ECB moved to cut rates. It did this even has the ECB shifted its inflation outlook higher at the current meeting. It is hard to say what analysis underlies this policy choice. The stated goal was to support the economy; at its meeting Christine Lagarde did not at all sound like she was planning a series of rate reductions. But the fact of the rate cut cannot be reassuring to those looking for the ECB to be the torchbearer for European monetary policy austerity.

GDP growth in the euro area solidified in Q1 but the year-on-year pace is still quite weak. Among the 12-EMU members reporting in the table in Q1, only the Netherlands reported a quarter-to-quarter GDP decline. However, Austria, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands (six countries) log year-on-year GDP declines in 2024-Q1. Six member countries showed GDP declines year-over-year in 2023-Q4; six also show GDP falling in 2023-Q3; five GDP drops are counted in 2023-Q2. There is no arguing with the notion that growth in EMU is weak. But is it- was it- threatened in a way that a single 25bp rate cut alleviated risk? Did an isolated rate cut have any role to play at all in macroeconomic policy? What was the ECB trying to tell us with that cut?

Ranking growth rates for the 12 countries in the table shows only Greece with a year-on-year growth rate above its median growth pace on data since 1997. Globally, growth is weak- the U.S. is a notable exception; and yet as the year began, the Fed in the U.S. was preparing for as many as 3 rate cuts this year! Something at central banks has shifted. But inflation risks seem to have shifted too and for the worse. China is no longer the low wage force it once was. The peace dividend is looking as if it has been spent. A rearmament cycle now seems more likely. Are central banks operating differently or have they gone soft? We are about to find out.

German orders fell in April when an increase had been expected; the decline in March had been revised to be larger and as a result the picture of German manufacturing had become bleaker in April.

The run of data on German manufacturing for the month is quite negative with very little that could be regarded as a bright spot or a positive result. A close look at the graphic, however, shows that foreign real orders are on a gradual uptrend (for their y/y growth rate) and have poked up above 0 to post a positive growth rate over 12 months. There's even a positive growth rate over six months that's stronger, still. But then, over three months, all that goes away. German domestic order growth rates deteriorate and decelerate from -8.3% over 12 months to an annual rate decline of 9.6% over six month to an annualized drop of 10.4% over three months. The headline for orders shows declines, hovering at 1.2% to 1.3% at an annual rate over 12 months and six months and then plunging at a 7.7% annual rate over three months. The year-over-year growth rate is poor, the trend in the shorter growth rates is poor, and the historic comparison shows a year ago drop of 10.9%. German orders have been weak for quite some time and that picture is continuing to paint on the same palette with the same colors looking ahead.

Sector sales fell by 1% in April after declining by 0.3% in March and posting a 1% rise in February. For manufacturing, there's also a sequential deterioration, with a 1.1% gain in February, a 0.4% annualized drop in March and a 0.9% annual rate drop in April. Sequential growth rates, however, from 12-months to six-months to three-months show the pace of decline for real sector sales diminishing for the overall metric as well as for all manufacturing sales. That's a little bit of good news, but those statistics still show overall real sales falling at a 1.2% annual rate over three months and manufacturing sales falling at 0.8% at an annual rate over three months.

Industrial indicators from the EU Commission in April all post negative numbers. In April, the metrics weakened in Germany, France, and in Italy but they strengthened slightly in Spain, compared to their March result. Sequentially the negative German numbers get progressively weaker from 12-months to six-months to three-months. The figures for France get slightly better, improving from a -8.2 reading over 12 months to a -5.6 reading over three months. Italy’s results vacillate between -6.5 to -7. Spain’s readings progressively improve from -6.9 over 12 months to a six-month average of -6 to a three-month average of -4.9. For the industrial data, we calculated queue standings that rank the April values in their historic queue of numbers back to 1990. On that basis, the German figures are the weakest of all with the 12.5 percentile standing, Italy has a 26.9 percentile standing, France has a 39.9 percentile standing; only Spain has a standing above its historic median, but the queue value of 52.9% is barely above the threshold of 50 that identifies where its median is located.

Quarter-to-date readings show us where the April figures reside in growth terms relative to the first quarter average results. German total orders, foreign orders, and domestic orders all are declining with the larger decline coming out of domestic orders at -12.6% at an annual rate. Real sales are declining at a 5.2% annual rate, with manufacturing sales declining at a 4.8% annual rate.