Moreover, the risk of the trade war spreading to a capital war has become more pressing. The EU has been considering activating its “Anti-Coercion Instrument” in response to US threats to Greenland, which could see services trade and capital flows targeted. 

Paul, Luke, and Lizzy discuss how a capital war could be the next stage of the global trade war, where the EU may have leverage over the US in such a conflict, the prospect of European institutions dumping US treasury holdings, and whether the US capital account surplus is really a chokepoint trading partners could exploit. 

With the US Federal Reserve under intense political pressure and the labour market at an inflection point, understanding how the FOMC might respond to shocks is critical for financial markets. Paul and Luke talk to Professor Tara Sinclair of George Washington University about her groundbreaking working paper FOMC in Silico, which uses AI personas to model the Fed’s decision-making process. They also explore how AI can augment decision-making more broadly and assess its impact on the labour market. 

The UK Budget is about two months away. The Chancellor is once again facing the prospect of her fiscal rules being breached, and the likely need to tighten fiscal policy. Paul Diggle and Luke Bartholomew are joined by Lizzy Galbraith, senior political economist at Aberdeen, to discuss the Chancellor’s tough choices, potential tax increases, and the state of the UK economy more broadly.

Read the research here: How large are global infrastructure needs? | Aberdeen Investments 

UK growth and investment have almost certainly been lower, and inflation higher, than otherwise. But as President Trump threatens to tear up the global trading system including targeting the EU with tariffs, and European regulation risks stifling the growth benefits of AI, Paul and Luke discuss how the lasting economic consequences of Brexit are still playing out. 

The US dollar is rising as investors price in Trump’s policy platform of tariffs, tax cuts, and deregulation. But key members of the new US administration want to see a weaker dollar to boost domestic manufacturing. Paul and Luke discuss this fundamental dilemma at the heart of the new administration’s economic policy, and how the US may exercise its full array of hard power tools to achieve economic, political, and territorial objectives. 

The coming year is going to see more economic and geopolitical volatility for investors to navigate. Paul asks members of the abrdn economic research team to outline the big questions they are asking as we head into 2025 – including President-elect Trump’s policy choices, the prospect of ceasefires in Ukraine and the Middle East, and whether the UK Chancellor will be back with more tax increases.

Paul and Luke speak to James McCann, Deputy Chief Economist at abrdn, about the outlook for the US economy. They debate whether the run of strong activity data but moderating inflation means a US soft landing is now more likely than a recession. 

The economy increasingly consists of ideas, brands, and relationships. This shift from “stuff” to intangibles has wide-ranging implications for productivity, competition, inequality, and how policymakers should manage the modern economy.

 They discuss comparisons with the global financial crisis, the negative economic spillovers of banking worries into the economy, and how all this effects the decision making of the Fed and other central banks.

Eddie tells us what it means to be a finance influencer, and talks about changing trends in the retail investor community around access to high quality research. We also talk about events at Silicon Valley Bank. Finally, Eddie tells us why he thinks chatbots and AI innovations will change how finance research and analysis is done.

 The Bank of Japan (BoJ) has been anchoring government bond yields at very low levels. But the policy is coming under increasing pressure from financial markets. Will the new Governor of the BoJ upend this key tenet of the global monetary policy landscape?

• This continued urgency provides a pushback to markets which had been flirting with the possibility of a more cautious Fed, and comes in response to a really ugly underlying inflation reading in August. 
• We continue to believe that the tightening needed to bring inflation back under control will be fatal for the business cycle, and have brought forward our expectation for a US recession to the middle of next year.
• Democrats have shown they can get policy done with a unified Congress and White House, but face an uphill battle to hold the latter in the November midterms, which could limit the degree of fiscal policy support in the face of a 2023 downturn. 

 The key takeaways are

 ·         Consumer sentiment in the Eurozone is at all-time lows. While these surveys probably overstate the degree of economic weakness, this kind of sentiment deterioration cannot help but have some impact on people’s spending patterns and so the economic outlook. Near term recession risks are therefore highly elevated.

·         Going into the winter, Europe faces an even more challenging economic environment, with Russian gas supplies to Europe likely to be highly restricted even in the best case scenario. In the worst case scenario, where Russian gas supplies are largely turned off, the continent would face severe energy rationing for firms causing a recession this year.

·         The collapse of the Italian government partly reflects the strains that high inflation and economic weakness are putting on political systems across the world. A governing coalition of right leaning parties looks to be the most likely outcome of elections later this year, which could further complicate Italy’s access to EU support measures.

·         The European Central Bank’s Transmission Protection Instrument should help support various sovereign debt markets through this tightening cycle. However, it may be less useful in dealing with spread widening caused by domestic political uncertainty.

·         The ECB is likely to deliver several more 50bps rate increases over the next few months. However, the Eurozone economy is heading for recession sooner or later, which means rate hikes will likely go into reverse at some point next year.

 The key takeaways are:

 ·         Chinese growth is rebounding out of the Shanghai lockdown, but this recovery may not prove particularly durable while zero-Covid remains in place. Already, there are renewed outbreaks requiring restrictions in parts of the country.

·         As a baseline expectation, China is likely to roll back zero Covid gradually after the 20th Party Congress in Q4. However, the rollout of mRNA vaccines or Omicron-specific vaccines may delay this timetable.

·         Fiscal and monetary policy are being used to support the economy, but will struggle to gain traction. Stimulus measures may just be pulling forward growth from the future.

·         President Xi is almost certain to secure a 3rd term at the 20th Congress, and continue to consolidate power around himself. The composition of the Politburo may hold clues about his desire for a 4th term and beyond, or whether a successor is being prepared.

·         Chinese policy is gradually playing down the supremacy of growth targets, instead pivoting to resilience and national security considerations. 

 The key takeaways are: 

 ·         Both the Great Moderation period of strong growth and low inflation, and the New Normal period of weak growth and low inflation were underwritten by low energy prices. The prospect of a return to structurally low energy prices in the near term seems very unlikely, making the job of monetary policy makers much more difficult. 

·         The Fed’s position at the centre of the global dollar system means its policy decisions have huge consequences for the rest of the world. In times of crisis this means the Fed has to act as lender of the last resort to much of the world, but even in “normal” times constrains the freedom of manoeuvre of various other central banks and governments. These concerns are likely to be particularly pressing in a period of rising rates. 

·         The current delegation of responsibilities between fiscal and monetary policy makers is highly contingent and may come under pressure in this period of high inflation. However, a return to fiscal policy acting as the key tool of macro stabilisation is unlikely, especially if it becomes tainted by association with this bout of inflation. 

The lesson from previous episodes of high energy prices and monetary tightening is that they typically end in recession, where demand destruction for energy comes about though economic weakness. 

 The key takeaways are: 

 Energy markets provide a vital frame to understand 20th and 21st century geopolitics. US energy independence has complicated the relationship between the US, Russia, and the Middle East; while European energy dependence has been an ongoing source of political and economic volatility. 

• The German energy strategy of binding Russia’s economic interests with Europe’s through mutual dependence on energy ties failed in part because Russia judged that non-European sources of demand reduced its dependence on European demand. 
• The transition to renewable energy is likely to bring further geopolitical tensions in part due to China’s dominance in the supply of key resources involved in green technologies. 
• The political response to today’s high energy prices has so far revolved around subsidising demand rather than cutting demand through moral suasion and a ‘politics of sacrifice’. That may change this winter if Russia cuts gas supplies to Europe. 
• Conditions of war may be more conducive to appeals to sacrifice, but politicians have so far struggled to mobile this rhetoric around using less energy as a necessary component of net zero. 

 The key takeaways were:

•  We expect the US economy to fall into recession in the second half of 2023 as a result of the Fed’s monetary policy tightening. 
• History suggests that when inflation gets this high and unemployment this low, hiking cycles overwhelming end in recessions. That is because the way to rebalance the economy and tame inflation expectations is to deliver a slowdown in activity commensurate with a recession. 
• The recession is not a ‘policy error’ in the conventional sense, but rather a necessary corrective. The policy error occurred in letting economic imbalances grow this big in the first place.
• Recession forecasts are notoriously difficult to make with many false negatives and false positives. This is the result of many factors, including the random nature of the shocks than often cause recessions, and the feedback that exists between forecasts and policy makers, with policy makers often actively trying to stop any forecasted recessions through stimulative policy.
• Because we consider this to be a necessary recession, policy makers cannot act to stop the downturn we expect. Indeed the Fed is actively trying to deliver a slowdown, not avert one. 
• Moreover, ongoing evidence of demand strength would not ease our recession concerns, but exacerbate them, as this would imply inflationary imbalances were getting more entrenched. It is only positive news about the supply side that would make us less concerned about a recession. 

The key takeaways are:

·         The Asia Pacific region is a crucial battleground in the world’s fight to decarbonise. Over the past 20 years, almost all the net increase in global emissions has come from APAC. That means it’s a region replete with investment opportunities and challenges as part of the energy transition.

·         abrdn’s climate scenarios forecast impairments of indices, sectors and companies through the energy transition. We use bespoke scenarios to include a range of realistic paths for carbon prices, emissions, technological change, and the global temperature rise.

·         APAC equity index impairments are larger than the global average because of bigger shares of energy, materials and consumer discretionary sectors. But in Chinese specifically, the index has a low negative exposure to the energy transition because many large emitters are not publicly listed. In all cases, the impact of the energy transition is primarily a security level phenomenon, making climate scenario modelling a crucial factor in stock selection. 

The key takeaways are:

·         The collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin Terra and associated coin Luna was caused by design flaws in its supposed stabilisation mechanism, exposed by a rising rates regime, which invited speculative attack

·         The financial challenges involved in maintaining a stablecoin resemble those of maintaining an fx peg, preserving convertibility at par in a money market fund, and fractional reserve banking. These are well understood problems in traditional finance, and may involve some degree of regulation as part of their solution

·         As such, this collapse is likely to increase regulatory attention on the crypto space, but the technology moves faster than regulators. Regulation may be a pre-condition for widespread institutional involvement in crypto

·         Bitcoin does not seem to be functioning as a diversifier and inflation hedge in this environment, potentially undermining its appeal within a wider portfolio. However, the collapse of weaker crypto assets may increase the appeal of more established coins

In this episode, the first of a two-part series, Luke Bartholomew is joined by abrdn Research Institute colleagues Robert Gilhooly, Senior Emerging Markets Research Economist and Sree Kochugovindan, Senior Research Economist to discuss these key questions.

Authors Stephanie Kelly and Abigail Watt discuss how tax rates can discourage women from paid  work and suggest how governments can lower this barrier.

The research also examines how childcare cost and availability are deterring women from paid work and how such obstacles reinforce both gender and ethnic inequalities. 

This week the team discuss three key topics:

·       The recent changes to the US Fed’s and other central banks’ inflation targeting frameworks

·       The implications of central banks getting involved in climate policy

·       Whether central banks are going to start issuing digital currencies in response to the rising popularity of cryptocurrencies

David’s NYT Op-Ed on Jerome Powell’s reappointment is here. 

Luke and Paul’s piece on green central banking is here

And here are our thoughts on the outlook of central bank digital currencies 


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In this episode we discuss the spread of the Delta variant through the major economies and highlight how vaccine rollouts and Covid handling will drive countries on different economic paths. 

The team explores how different policy responses, political preferences and varying vaccination rates are creating a divergent recovery. Mapping a country’s vaccine penetration against its Covid-handling strategy can give a good indication of its economic recovery prospects.    


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 This new Gender Equality Index (GEI) scores and ranks 29 developed countries on gender equality, in terms of macroeconomic fundamentals, policy and empowerment – and shows where countries are doing well and where they need to improve when it comes to maximising female potential in the workforce.

 In this episode the authors share their belief that countries with more progressive gender policies and higher GEI scores will be better equipped to deal with issues like aging populations and slowing productivity growth and why investors considering long-term risks should factor in gender equality to get a more holistic view of the fundamental problems of labour supply constraints and the consequences of aging populations. 

 The GEI seeks to provide a basic framework for undertaking this analysis and a useful additional tool for forecasting which countries are vulnerable to weak productivity and potential growth and which are likely to flourish and benefit from the growth in the investment environment.


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Welcome to another week of Macro Bytes. In this episode our host Paul Diggle is joined by James McCann from ASI and Kathy Bostjancic from Oxford Economics. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the US is seeing a slower than expected recovery of the labour market. We discuss the potential causes and the future outlook. 

Part 1 focuses on the labour market, the causes behind mismatched labour supply and demand, and the implications for inflation. 

Part 2 discusses the June Federal Reserve meeting  and what monetary policy normalisation means for financial markets.

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Welcome to another week of Macro Bytes. In this episode our host Stephanie Kelly is joined by Jeremy Lawson, Chief Economist at the abrdn Research Institute. Having discussed the general outlook for inflation in the US in a recent episode of the podcast, this week we focus in on how to think about inflationary risks when it comes to US-China politics and the fragmented global trade environment.

Part 1 discusses US-China relations hot on the heels of the G7 summit.

Part 2 explores whether investors should worry about US-China decoupling adding to inflation pressures.


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Welcome to another week of Macro Matters. In this episode our host Paul Diggle is joined by Jeremy Lawson, Luke Bartholomew and Robert Gilhooly from the abrdn Research Institute.  A year ago, Luke and Paul’s research report ‘How is this recession different?’ considered how the economic shock from the pandemic differed from any recession seen before.  Now, 12 months on and with the bounce out of the recession underway, the question is around the nature of the  recovery.

Luke begins by discussing the shape of the recovery and the extent of monetary and fiscal policy support.

Jeremy asks whether this recovery is the start of a new business cycle or a continuation of the previous one, and explores divergences in the goods and services sectors.

Bob focuses on how the recovery may vary between emerging and developed markets.


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Welcome to another week of Macro Bytes. In this episode, we welcome our guest host, Luke Bartholomew who is joined by James McCann, abrdn’s  Deputy Chief Economist.  The post-pandemic surge in consumer prices raises concerns over potential overheating the US economy and the risk of inflation.

Part 1 focuses on recent US inflation data and the bottlenecks in the goods and services sector.

Part 2 considers the outlook for inflation, the risks in 2022/23 and  the Federal Reserve’s response. 


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In this episode, our host Paul Diggle is joined by Sree Kochugovindan, Senior Research Economist and Robert Gilhooly, Senior Emerging Markets Research Economist from abrdn Research Institute. Together they discuss the reasons behind the global semiconductor shortage and what this means for markets.

Part 1 explores the supply and demand factors behind the current shortage their consequences and how long they may last.

Part 2 focuses on the implications for inflation, chip production, geo-strategic competition and reliance on global supply chains. 


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Our host Stephanie Kelly is joined by Luke Bartholomew, Senior Monetary Economist at abrdn. With the results of the recent Scottish elections,  eyes turn to the question of independence and its impact on the UK economy.

Part 1 begins by discussing the pre-election political context in the UK and the key takeaways from Scottish and local English elections.

Part 2 discusses the path and barriers to a Scottish independence referendum and explore what Scottish independence would mean for monetary policy, currency and the Scottish economy.

In this episode our host Paul Diggle is joined by special guest Dominic White, Head of Economics at Absolute Strategy Research. Having published a recent note ‘Signs of a shift out of Secular Stagnation’, Dominic comes with some interesting views on how we can compare the 1920s economic boom with the 2020s in relation to the economic aftermath of the Covid pandemic.

Part 1 begins by characterising the Roaring Twenties decade, drawing parallels between 1920 and 2020 and explaining secular stagnation.

Part 2 discusses why the Roaring 2020s analogy falls short and focuses on why investors and markets should remain optimistic.

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Part 1 begins by summarising Biden’s approach to foreign policy compared to his predecessor. In particular, the discussion is around the US position in global politics and how allies are reacting to a more friendly US partnership.

Part 2 The focus then shifts to the climate agenda, the US China stand-off and impacts on countries caught in the cross hairs. 

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In this episode our host Paul Diggle is joined by special guest, Dr Grégory Claeys. Senior Fellow at the European think tank Bruegel and Associate Professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris. Grégory talks to us from Brussels to share his expertise in macroeconomics, central banking and European governance.

Also joining Paul is the familiar voice of Luke Bartholomew, our in-house Monetary Economist. Together they discuss the impending ECB strategic review and how climate change can be incorporated into monetary policy.

Part 1 gives the background on the ECB strategic review, and explains how the inflation target and the tools of monetary policy may change.

Part 2 focuses in on climate change in relation to monetary policy, the tools a central bank has to fight climate change, and how it fits in with the ECB’s mandate.

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Welcome to another week of Macro Bytes. In this episode our co-hosts Stephanie Kelly and Paul Diggle address the motivations for, and problems with, the European Union’s longstanding fiscal rules.

Part 1 outlines what the EU fiscal rules are, why they were needed in the first place, and why they have recently been so heavily criticized.

Part 2 covers the various reform proposals that have been put forward, before discussing the key political players across Germany and Italy that investors should look out for.

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Joining our host Stephanie Kelly for another US politics special is the familiar voice of Luke Bartholomew , our Senior Monetary Economist and regular guest on the podcast. Together they open up the conversation around Biden’s bold infrastructure plan and its macro and political impacts.

Part 1 sets the scene for the US in terms of the Covid crisis before explaining what the infrastructure package includes and how it's funded

Part 2 covers what this new proposal actually means in relation to politics, the macro environment and climate change.

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 Our host Paul Diggle is joined by the familiar voice of Luke Bartholomew, our in-house monetary policy expert, as well as Ross Hutchison, Investment Director at abrdn who works at the coal-face of government bond markets. Together they discuss the causes of the rise in bond yields, the implications for the economy and markets, and what central banks are saying and doing about it all.
 
 

In this episode our host Stephanie Kelly is joined by two of our Emerging Market Economists from the ASI Research Institute, Robert Gilhooly and Edward Glossop. Together, they discuss the Covid crisis from the perspective of emerging markets and the implications of the crisis on future growth prospects.

Part 1 begins by explaining the EM experience of the pandemic versus DMs before focusing on Latin America to discuss the political implications of the crisis.

Part 2 gives an update on Chinese and Russian vaccine diplomacy and the impact of the Biden administration on Latin America and China.

Welcome to another episode of Macro Matters. This week our host Paul Diggle is joined by special guest David Oxley, Senior Economist from Capital Economics. Together with Luke Bartholomew, our in-house Monetary Economist, they discuss whether central banks should issue digital currencies.

Part 1 brings us up to speed on what CBDCs are, how they differ from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, and what it would mean in practice for us all to have a bank account with the central bank.

Part 2 discusses the potential costs and benefits of CBDCs, focussing on the consumer and business innovations that could be possible, how CBDCs might change monetary policy, and the future of commercial banks in this brave new world.

For investors and for policymakers, this is especially thorny because it partly depends on individual behaviour. What will reopening mean for the large savings balances that wealthier individuals have amassed? Will people flash the cash on meals out and foreign travel as soon as economies start to re-open? And what will all of that mean for growth, inflation and the market environment? 

Stephanie Kelly discusses the tricky question of post-pandemic economic forecasting with James McCann, with some hints from our mini-survey of the Macro Bytes team and what they're personally most looking forward to in life after lockdown.  

We'll be publishing further editions of the research throughout the year so stay up to date by visiting our Research Hub where you'll find related articles, upcoming events and links to download the full working research paper.

Our hosts Stephanie Kelly and Paul Diggle are joined once again by Jeremy Lawson, Chief Economist and head of the ASI Research Institute. Together they discuss the complex process of economic forecasting, and explain the additional uncertainties introduced by Covid-19 that mean vaccine rollout and lockdown  stringency are important economic considerations.
 
Part 1 focuses on how the pandemic has changed the way economists do their forecasts, and describes a framework for integrating vaccine rollout and lockdown stringency into the outlook for economies and markets. 
 
Part 2 considers the outlook for vaccine rollout and expectations for re-opening, as well as the longer term impacts of the crisis.

In this episode, our host Paul Diggle is joined by fellow economists from the Aberdeen Standard Investments Research Institute, James McCann and Luke Bartholomew. Together they discuss the role of fiscal policy in the pandemic recovery, and whether economies risk having ‘too much of a good thing’.

Part 1 addresses why a country is not like a household in its debt carrying capacity, what that means for austerity versus fiscal stimulus, and whether debt-to-GDP limits are much larger than people think.

Part 2 turns our attention to the current debate over the size of fiscal stimulus in the US, the role of fiscal policy when central banks are so constrained, and what such huge stimulus measures mean for the inflation outlook.

This week on Macro Matters, our hosts Stephanie Kelly and Paul Diggle return our attention back to Europe and bring us up to speed on the recent economic and political developments impacting the EU.

Part 1 focuses on Europe’s handling of the covid crisis, covering vaccine roll out, fiscal policy and the role of the European Central Bank.

Part 2 covers both Germany and Italy, discussing the implications of Germany’s next chancellor and the task ahead for the Draghi government.

This week on Macro Matters, our hosts Stephanie Kelly and Paul Diggle are joined once again by Robert Gilhooly, our in-house Senior Emerging Markets Research Economist. Together they discuss the political implications of the Covid vaccine rollout and what this means for foreign policy, UK-EU relations, and emerging markets.

Part 1 focuses on vaccine nationalism covering Brexit, Euroscepticism and border controls.

Part 2 ends with vaccine diplomacy and covers vaccine donations, emerging market vaccine supply and Covax.

In this episode our host Paul Diggle discusses the post-pandemic future of cities with the esteemed British economist Bridget Rosewell. Once the Chief Economist for the Greater London Authority and now Non-Executive Director of Network Rail, Bridget shares her leading expertise on the economics of cities and transport.

• How big is the drag from renewed lockdowns?
• How quickly will vaccines be rolled out and gain macroeconomic traction?
• What does the Brexit deal actually mean?
• What will a Biden Presidency do?
• Is the global economy facing fiscal cliffs?
• Will monetary policy remain a support?
• Which way will inflation go?

In part 1, we consider why innovation matters for business, the "silver-lining" effect that Covid has had in incentivising firms to innovate, and the challenge companies face to keep up the momentum as the world returns to something closer to ‘normal’ in 2021.

In part 2, we discuss why innovation is a key factor for the macroeconomic outlook and how research can allow investors to identify the winners and losers of digital innovation.

Part 2  highlights the growing demand for climate scenario analysis from clients, regulators and beyond. 

Our host Paul Diggle is joined by two familiar faces from the Aberdeen Standard Research Institute, giving us a trio of economic expertise - Sree Kochugovindan, Senior Research Economist and Luke Bartholomew, Senior Monetary Economist. 

Part 1 focuses on the outlook for energy and food prices, the impact of tax cuts and wages support, and the practical difficulties of measuring inflation during a pandemic.

Part 2 compares the high inflation of the 1970s and the low inflation of the 2010s, applying the lessons of these distinct historical inflation regimes to the inflation outlook from here.

Part 1 begins by touching on themes from Barry’s published works and explains the key drivers of populism and its impact on economic growth. Diving into the pandemic, the discussion turns to Covid’s unequal economic impact whilst also covering the US Election and the challenges being faced in Eastern Europe.

Part 2 follows Steph and Paul as they discuss examples of populism in action today, what it means for investors and what we can expect going forward.

Part 2 questions the impact of the US Election on US-China relations whilst also touching on its 2060 zero-carbon commitment.

Part 2 dives deeper into the EU agenda covering the pandemic, Europe post-Merkel, Brexit, and the longer term challenges facing the Eurozone.

A note on timing: we recorded the podcast at 11.00 UK GMT and 06.00 Washington DC time on November 4th 2020.

For part 2, Stephanie takes the hot seat and Senior Economist, Paul Diggle, picks up the questioning of polling accuracy.

Then it's a chat with Research Economist, Abigail Watt, on the rise of big data, which economists are using to track the economy in real time during this crisis. 

We recorded this episode the day after the first U.S. Presidential debate, and before the announcement about President Trump's positive Covid-19 test.