While Brazil's growth performance has been quite remarkable, its success has been overshadowed by persistent fiscal concerns. At a time when the currency is already weakened by an unfavorable international context, fiscal uncertainty is accentuating the depreciation of the Brazilian real (BRL/USD), which in turn is tending to reinforce the inflationary pressures seen since May. 

The election of Javier Milei as President who took office in December 2023 have made 2024 a year of radical change. The results of his fiscal austerity, aimed at ending monetary financing, and his management of the peso are both impressive (budget surplus, important disinflation) and mechanical (progress on the inflation and external accounts fronts can also be explained by the recession). Reducing...

Due to latest political developments and recent soft data (BdF survey, PMIs etc.), we are currently reviewing into details our forecast for France. The final and official version will be published in CASA Eco next ‘World scenario’ that will be published on 20 December. In this paper, we introduce some key preliminary figures that we obtained, the main news is the downward revision of our growth forecast...

Despite a slight slowdown, economic activity continued to grow in France in Q2 2024, up 0.2% after 0.3% in Q1. The mid-year carry-over effect on growth thus stood at 0.9% for 2024. 

Third-quarter growth is expected to be strong, boosted by the Olympic and Paralympic Games, ahead of a negative backlash in the fourth quarter. Growth for full-year 2024 will come out at 1.1%, stable compared with the...

In a still uncertain context, Italy's performance, compared to other countries in the Eurozone, appears rather positive. With a GDP increase of 0.2% in the second quarter compared to the previous quarter, the Italian economy is growing at the same pace as the French economy, despite a less favourable carryover (+0.6% in 2024), and is performing better than Germany, where GDP decreased by 0.1% over the...

Our "narrative", based on a recovery driven by domestic demand, and private consumption in particular, is being tested. This scenario was not confirmed by actual developments in the first half of 2024. While the fundamentals of a recovery in household purchasing power remain in place, households continue to increase their savings rate to the detriment of consumption.

In the absence of household spending...

UK economic growth was sluggish in 2023, with a slight recession in H2 2023, as past shocks on producer costs and consumer prices coupled with tight monetary policy weighed on demand. Economic activity grew strongly in H1 2024 on expectations of monetary policy easing (which the Bank of England effectively started in August 2024), but growth is expected to slow going forward to an expected +0.3% QoQ in...

The Spanish economy continued to grow robustly at the beginning of the year despite an array of unfavourable factors, including the weakness of the Eurozone economies, persistently high inflation, and the impact of the rise in interest rates, which were expected to peak in Q1 2024. The strong performance was driven by positive labour-market momentum, persistently dynamic immigration and sound...

Despite inflationary pressures and high interest rates, Italian growth proved "resilient" in 2023. Growth picked up slightly at the start of 2024, with a 0.3% increase in GDP, leaving an overhang of 0.6% for the year. Lower inflation combined with a stable labour market should support a modest recovery in consumption in the coming quarters, though consumer caution and a high savings rate may prevent a...

The Egyptian economy, though weakened, is recovering from a two-year external liquidity crisis. The crisis is a reminder of the extent to which countries with debt and dependent on external financing are vulnerable to investor confidence. Thanks to substantial funding from the United Arab Emirates and the IMF, the country's external liquidity risk has dipped sharply. But this is not a long-term blank...