Chart of the WeekGlobal Inflation Pressures Broadened on Food and Energy Price Gains
Chart of the WeekLonger Delivery Times Reflect Supply Chain Disruptions
By Parisa Kamali and Alex (Shiyao) Wang
Supply chain disruptions have become a major challenge for the global economy since the start of the pandemic. […]
Limiting the Economic Fallout of the Coronavirus with Large Targeted Policies
This blog is part of a special series on the response to the coronavirus.
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This health crisis will have a significant economic fallout, reflecting shocks to supply and demand different from past crises. Substantial targeted policies are needed to support the economy through the epidemic, keeping intact the web of economic and financial relationships between workers and businesses, lenders and borrowers, and suppliers and end-users for activity to recover once the outbreak fades. The goal is to prevent a temporary crisis from permanently harming people and firms through job losses and bankruptcies. […]
Smartphones Drive New Global Tech Cycle, but Is Demand Peaking?
By Benjamin Carton, Joannes Mongardini, and Yiqun Li
February 8, 2018
Demand for smartphones is highly cyclical and related to the release of new models (photo: iStock by GettyImages).
Over a decade of spectacular growth, demand for smartphones has created a new global tech cycle that last year produced a new smartphone for every fifth person on earth.
This has created a complex and evolving supply chain across Asia, changing the export and growth performance of several countries. While our recent analysis of Chinese smartphone exports suggests that the global market may be saturated, demand for other electronics continues to support rising semiconductor production in Asia. […]
It’s Mostly Food: How to Tame Indian Inflation
By Rahul Anand and Paul Cashin
After being low for decades, inflation in India trended higher from the mid-2000s. It reached 10–11 percent by 2008, and remained elevated at double digits for several years. Even though inflation fell by almost half in 2014, inflation expectations have remained high.
High and persistent inflation in recent years has presented serious macroeconomic challenges in India, increasing the country’s domestic and external vulnerabilities. As Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan pointed out at the 8th R.N. Kao Memorial Lecture in 2014, “inflation is a destructive disease … we can’t push inflation under the carpet as a central banker. We have to deal with it.”