All #Julius Probst, PhD Stories

Corporate greed has been wrongly blamed for this bout of inflation. Greedflation isn't the problem. Excess growth and labor shortages are.

Is this the moment of resurgence for cities and states in the Rust Belt that suffered in recent decades due to the "China Shock"?

The story of the United Kingdom's economy lately has been one of disaster, but recent revisions may have changed the narrative.

High frequency indicators allow economists to gauge economic performance in real-time and they are pointing at a German contraction.

The dysfunctional housing market in the United Kingdom prevents workers from moving to highly productive cities, leading to underperformance.

After years of stagnation following the Eurozone crisis, Southern Europe has turned the tables and is now outperforming the rest of the Eurozone.

Advanced economies are experiencing very tight labor markets. This worker shortage has implications for hiring. Recruiters are increasingly poaching employees rather than recruiting from a shrinking pool of unemployed, which has implications for monetary policy.

The U.S. labor market added a moderate 187,000 net new jobs in July and the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.5%.

The German economy is once again underperforming, experiencing a technical recession earlier this year. But why is the country sick again?

Germany was dubbed “the sick man of Europe” in the early 2000s. Labor market reforms paired with favorable macroeconomic conditions cured the economic malaise.

Japan's dismal demographic outlook has caused an interesting phenomenon: low unemployment paired with negative GDP growth. These "full employment recessions" are becoming more common in Europe.

The UK's National Health System is stretched dangerously thin, with waiting lines so long people's lives are at risk. The lack of health services is also hurting the labor market.

The German economy has benefited from a surge in immigration, but a skill mismatch is emerging.

The global manufacturing industry is being hurt by a shift in consumer preferences, especially in Europe.

Canada’s liberal immigration policies are a success story. The country’s population recently reached 40 million, surpassing that of California.

A massive inflow of Ukrainian refugees has boosted Poland’s labor supply and is contributing to its economy outperforming the rest of Europe.

Despite Brexit, the U.K. will remain a popular immigration destination, but the housing market will be a constraint moving forward. 

While there is no doubt new AI technologies like ChatGPT will boost productivity, history tells us it could take some time.

Higher interest rates are about to send U.K. mortgage rates soaring, aggravating the current cost-of-living crisis and the housing market.

Germany is officially in a recession. Though there are declines in several industries, weak government spending is the largest drain.

The recession that was revised away: new economic projections from the BoE no longer show an upcoming downturn in the United Kingdom.

How can a country with five million inhabitants distort the GDP of Europe, an economic area with more than 340 million people?

Unlike other advanced economies, the U.K. is experiencing particularly sticky inflation and the real possibility of a wage-price spiral.

Eurozone inflation remains too hot, but commodity prices and distorted supply chains are no longer the causes. It's excess demand.

Germany's once-strong economy is stagnating, partly due to a slowdown in industrial production, especially the decline in car production.

The natural rate of unemployment is a key economic variable used by the Federal Reserve to assess the stance of monetary policy and economic growth, but it was overestimated for years.

The difference between the central bank and the OBR reflects diverging assumptions about employment, worker productivity, and business investment.

Financial volatility has returned to the Eurozone, but the central bank continued to hike interest rates to fight inflation. Germany's economy is at risk.

The post-pandemic labor market has been extremely tight with many vacancies left unfilled.

In the UK, consumer confidence and business sentiment are gradually increasing, as the economy continues to evade a massive downturn.

Economic growth in the United Kingdom depends on the strength of the labor force. But Brexit, demographic declines, and long-term health issues threaten that strength.

While soft and hard data are disconnected in other countries, the United Kingdom is doing just as poorly as workers and businesses believe.

Many forecasters have been predicting a large economic contraction for Germany in 2023 due to the spike in energy prices, but the economy has been surprisingly resilient until now.

The Bank of England's new economic projections show much less pessimism about the labor market and economic growth in the short term.

While a U.K. recession is highly likely, there is a lot of uncertainty on how deep and prolonged the economic downturn will be.

Even though the British economy is in a downturn, the labor market might hold up better this time than during the typical recession, especially since there is still a shortage of blue-collar jobs due to Brexit.