Investment defined by economists

The country's industrial production is expected to continue to edge higher while the contraction in retail sales is expected to narrow to around zero in June from-2.8 percent in May. Growth in fixed-asset investment will remain robust with infrastructure investment expanding at a double-digit rate thanks to abundant government funding, economists said. … [Read more...] about Economists expect GDP to return to growth in Q2

biggest lockdown, a series of high-frequency indicators show. From power consumption to jobs to Google’s mobility trends, the figures show activity has picked up from the record slump registered in April, but the recovery has a long way to go.In the absence of official figures, economists are increasingly turning to alternative data sets to get a better sense of how Asia’s third-largest economy is coping with the coronavirus pandemic. The strict stay-at-home measures have almost paralyzed official data collection, with the government failing to publish headline consumer price figures for April and May. The last report on factory output data was for March, with the statistics office suspending field surveys because of the lockdown.On Friday, the government published industrial output data for May that showed a “graded pickup” in activity from April, but it cautioned against comparing the index with months preceding the Covid-19 outbreak. Even though India has … [Read more...] about What Google data tells us about India’s economic recovery

Leading climate change economist, Lord Nicholas Stern, at the London School of Economics: If you want to make America great again, building modern, clean and smart infrastructure makes tremendous commercial and national sense, In the longer term, the low carbon growth story is the only growth story on offer. There is no long-term, high-carbon growth story, because destruction of the environment would reverse growth. … [Read more...] about Top climate experts give their advice to Donald Trump

“These are disappointing figures overall, with little sign that the persistent underperformance on productivity is coming to an end. Many organisations will be unable to offer higher wages as a result, meaning significant numbers of workers will feel poorer in 2017 if inflation continues to rise as anticipated,” he said. … [Read more...] about Weak UK productivity spurs warnings of living standards squeeze

Living standards have been squeezed as a result of the fall in the value of the pound since the EU referendum in June 2016. The annual inflation rate has risen from below 1% to more than 3%, while earnings have been growing at an annual rate of just over 2% despite a steady fall in unemployment to a 42-year low of 4.3%. … [Read more...] about UK household spending slows to lowest level in almost six years