Macro roundup: Deflationary mire
Macro roundup: Deflationary mire
Prices drop; unemployment stable; second lockdown hits business revenue
Deflation in December continued to plumb depths last seen during at the height of Greece’s debt crisis, while inflation stabilised on October, before the second nationwide lockdown came into effect.
Data summary:
Greece’s harmonised consumer price index fell 2.4 percent in December from a year earlier, compared with 2.1 percent in November. The index was led down by a 7.5 percent drop in transport costs.
The total revenue of companies obliged to submit monthly data dropped 8.4 percent in November compared with the same month of 2019. For those businesses that had to suspend operations in March due to the lockdown, the drop from a year earlier in November was 51 percent.
The unemployment rate was unchanged at 16.7 percent in October.
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Next week’s key data
Monday:
October building activity survey (Elstat)
Tuesday:
Fourth-quarter bank lending survey (Bank of Greece)
Wednesday:
November balance of payments (Bank of Greece)
Friday:
Third-quarter general government non-financial accounts (Elstat)
Elsewhere on the web
The economic impact of ancient colonisation
The EU’s anti-fraud body is investigating Frontex, its border agency
Relatedly, here’s John Psaropoulos’s review of Turkey’s relations with Greece, Europe and refugees caught in the crossfire in 2020
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