by Stephen Roberts | Sep 29, 2014 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts
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Our monthly roundup of global and local economic data and events shows continuing improvement in the US economy, but patchy to soft economic readings in China and Europe. The Australian economy presents a very mixed bag and the world’s major central banks are closer to the point of diverging, with the US Federal Reserve (Fed) edging towards starting to hike its funds rate while most others are still looking to maintain or extend very easy monetary conditions. The different messages from the major central banks may generate more volatility in financial markets than has been the case over the past year or so.
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by Stephen Roberts | Sep 22, 2014 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts
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Spending on new and existing housing has started to make a material contribution to Australian economic growth. In Q1 2014, the volume of spending on new and existing housing rose by 6.4% quarter-on-quarter (qoq) and added a further 5.7% in Q2. The contribution to GDP growth from housing was 0.2 percentage points in both Q1 and Q2 after zero quarterly contribution each quarter through 2013. Moreover, the material quarterly contributions from housing to growth look set to keep coming through Q3 and Q4 2014 and through 2015 on the basis of reports of strong home buying activity extending to still mostly strong monthly reports of home building approvals.
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by Stephen Roberts | Sep 15, 2014 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts
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At face value, the Australian economy seems to be powering along registering 3.1% y-o-y GDP growth in Q2 with employment lifting by a record 121,000 in August, reducing the unemployment rate to 6.1% from 6.4% in July. Unfortunately, the GDP reading and the labour force readings do not present a true gauge of economic strength recognisable to most Australian businesses and households. As far as most stakeholders in the economy are concerned, the economy seems softer than the GDP and labour force data imply, and the RBA seems to share those concerns.
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