Hints and tips:
Related Special Reports
...“It’s too pessimistic to assume that, if we are indeed on the cusp of a new technology-driven productivity boom centred around AI and related services, this will pass the eurozone by completely.”...
...martin.wolf@ft.com Follow Martin Wolf with myFT and on Twitter...
...Falling energy and food prices and slower goods inflation were offset by an acceleration in services prices....
...Energy prices fell 1.8 per cent, a slower decline than the 3.7 per cent fall in February. Goods prices rose 1.1 per cent, the slowest pace since 2021....
...Martin Arnold Did US core inflation slow in March?...
...Falling energy and food costs and slower goods inflation offset an acceleration of services prices. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a slightly higher reading of 2.4 per cent for March....
...The Italian statistics agency said the increase reflected the end of seasonal clothing sales as well as higher prices for transport services and a slower decline in energy costs....
...Both Germany and France benefited from weaker inflation in goods and food in February, but this was partly offset by a rebound in energy costs and persistent growth in services prices....
...The carbon transition is, after all, largely about changing the technologies we use for energy, movement and production — that is to say, innovating and technologically upgrading our way to a better economy...
...He cited the recent stickiness of eurozone services prices — which have risen at an annual rate of 4 per cent for five months — as an example of how “incoming data are providing some challenge to the ECB...
...Both the US and EU economies have performed much better than expected in the recovery from the pandemic, despite the energy crisis, geopolitical risk and monetary tightening....
...Take away professional services, and value added per worker would have risen 0.2 percentage points less than it did; a tenth of the contribution the sector made in the US....
...But energy inflation picked up slightly....
...Core inflation, excluding volatile energy and food prices, held steady at 3.4 per cent. Prices for services also continued to rise by 3.4 per cent....
...While many physical goods — cars, say — largely trade frictionlessly in a homogeneous EU-wide economy, national borders still matter a lot, especially in services....
...But services prices that make up half the inflation rate accelerated slightly to 3.2 per cent and tobacco prices moved sharply higher....
...European economists make bold proposals for a unified EU energy policy. The EU’s financial services commissioner wants progress on the bloc’s capital markets union....
...Eurozone inflation slowed to 2.8 per cent in January, but the decline in underlying price measures was less than economists expected after stripping out more volatile energy and food costs....
...Martin Arnold...
...The two largest eurozone economies both reported sharply lower inflation in energy and goods, but they also had jumps in labour-intensive services prices....
...Detailed information about the model’s energy use has not been made available....
...Central banks, like everyone else, were taken by surprise by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s energy war and how it and other pressures drove up inflation....
...I’m Katie Martin. Thanks for listening. [MUSIC PLAYING]...
...The energy sector is interesting. Energy stocks are always inexpensive relative to the market because the earnings of the sector are so cyclical....
...Eurostat, the EU’s statistics arm, said that lower price growth for goods in January offset an acceleration of fresh food costs and stable growth in services prices....
International Edition