Economic outlook

The global economy is experiencing brisk, broadly based growth in the current year. World trade is undergoing a growth spurt. At the same time, inflation remains sluggish.

How would a rapid but controlled restructuring of China’s economy or a sudden halt to debt-driven growth affect the Chinese and euro area economies?

Labour productivity growth has slowed in many advanced economies. Is this phenomenon temporary or permanent, and what is the cause?

Global growth will strengthen relative to 2016 and proceed at a pace of over 3% in 2017–2019. Chinese growth will decelerate in an orderly manner, moderating the pace of global growth.

The economic policy measures planned by the new US administration are geared towards fuelling growth. This alternative scenario assesses the possible effects of potential infrastructure investments, tax cuts and the proposed border adjustment tax.

Since the financial crisis of 2008, the growth rate has been exceptionally slow, due to weak growth in total factor productivity. In addition to the recession itself, the slow pace of recovery does, in fact, constitute a significant part of the overall costs of the crisis.

Inflation expectations extracted from inflation swaps are often used as a measure of the market’s inflation expectations, but the evolution of the swaps does not always correspond to actual changes in inflation expectations.

According to futures prices monitored in the Bank of Finland forecast for the international economy, oil prices will rise only slightly in the near future. Futures prices are however surrounded with considerable uncertainty.