Tag Archives: World Affairs: Features

The National Bureau for Economic Research defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.” And the question of the hour: Has the United States entered a recession? If not, is it about to? To both questions, Credit Suisse answers no. The bank’s Global Market economists expect the U.S. economy to grow by 2 percent...

The effects of China’s economic slowdown are truly global: At the same time that investors are pulling billions of dollars out of neighboring Asian countries, Latin American countries are seeing raw materials exports to the Middle Kingdom fall sharply, and China concerns have brought volatility back to stock markets around the world and doused investor risk appetite. Could Europe be the next to be affected by sinking Chinese demand?   Unlike Latin America, a China-related sharp...

In the old days, before the world was awash in capital with nowhere to go, an announcement of monetary easing was generally considered a good thing, a sign that central bankers were on the job. Historically, in all but the most extreme circumstances, lower interest rates have tended to spur economic activity, with the contemporaneous effect of supporting risky assets. But we are clearly living in an extreme circumstance, and after eight years of such announcements from central banks, it’s...

Since 2009, Europe’s peripheral economies – Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain – have tried to dig their way out of a debt crisis by cutting public spending and raising taxes. This year, however, will be different. Fiscal policy in the euro zone is expected to ease for the first time since 2010.   The European economists in Credit Suisse’s Global Markets division say it’s high time fiscal policy loosened in the Eurozone. Had it done so earlier, the region might now be...

Brazil has certainly had its share of trials and tribulations lately: The economy is in recession, inflation is on the rise, budget deficits are widening, its sovereign debt rating has been downgraded, and the political environment is challenging. Yet, the country still has a lot going for it. It remains the largest economy in Latin America, and one that is rich in resources ranging from agricultural products to industrial metals. Home to some of the continent’s strongest political...

As a country, Brazil has many things going for it: a large economy, a young population, and plentiful natural resources. But if it is to enjoy the economic growth those assets can provide, it needs to make structural reforms that can help close budget deficits, slow the growth in public debt, and remove obstacles to economic growth. Former presidents and central bankers, economists and industrialists, all agreed at the Credit Suisse 2016 Latin America Investment Conference (LAIC) that for...

The threat of secession has dogged both European governments and the region as a whole for the last four years. Greece has come perilously close to leaving the euro a number of times since 2012, Scottish voters rejected a proposition to leave the United Kingdom in 2014, and 80 percent of those who voted in Spain’s Catalonia region said they would like to be an independent state in a non-binding poll the same year. (Catalonian separatists plan another push for independence over the next 18...

The beginning of a new year is supposed to be a time to start fresh, but for oil markets, 2016 has brought only fresh troubles. On January 6, the U.S. Energy Information Administration announced that at 482.3 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are close to an 80-year-high for this time of year. As if that weren’t enough, concerns about global economic growth, sparked by another month of weak Chinese manufacturing data, triggered a widespread selloff in global financial markets last...

Is it August 2015 again? In the first week of January, a spectacular Chinese stock market crash once again prompted officials to provide extraordinary stimulus measures and devalue the yuan. Just as before, gyrations in China pushed global markets deep into risk-off mode, with selloffs in Asian, European, and U.S. equities, as well as crude oil futures. The resolution is likely to be the same as it was last August, too, according to Kasper Bartholdy, Head of Emerging Market Fixed Income...

Depending on who’s talking, the climate change agreement reached at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference in mid-December is either a watershed moment in environmental history or just another toothless framework. It’s certainly true that the political will of current and future national governments will play a large role in how much greenhouse gas emissions fall in the next two decades – and how much the global temperature rises as a result. Still, Credit Suisse says the deal’s very existence...