UK Economy Forecast to Narrow GDP Gap with Germany by 2038

The UK will be Europe’s best-performing major economy in the next 15 years, narrowing the gap with Germany and extending its lead over France, according to new long-run forecasts.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research predicted that GDP growth in the UK will settle between 1.6% and 1.8% in the period up until 2038, helping it retain its position as the world’s sixthlargest economy.

Under CEBR’s long-run world economic rankings, the UK is expected to grow faster than all of the eurozone “big four” economies — France, Germany, Italy and Spain — but not as rapidly as the US.

“The fundamentals of the UK economy are still very much strong,” said Pushpin Singh, senior economist at CEBR. “London’s status as a financial and advisory services hub enduring, along with the wider strength of the services sector across the UK, will push UK growth.”

By 2038, Italy will drop out of the world’s top 10 economies by size, replaced by South Korea. The US and Germany will slip down the rankings, while India and Brazil — two developing economies with large populations — will rise within the top 10.

France will underperform the UK particularly due to its large public sector and high tax levels, while Germany’s manufacturing slowdown will help Britain narrow the gap, according to Singh.

Available at: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/uk-economy-forecast- -to-narrow-gdp-gap-with-germany-by-2038-1.2015577. Retrieved on: Dec. 26, 2023. Adapted.

UK Economy Forecast to Narrow GDP Gap with Germany by 2038

The UK will be Europe’s best-performing major economy in the next 15 years, narrowing the gap with Germany and extending its lead over France, according to new long-run forecasts.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research predicted that GDP growth in the UK will settle between 1.6% and 1.8% in the period up until 2038, helping it retain its position as the world’s sixth-largest economy.

Under CEBR’s long-run world economic rankings, the UK is expected to grow faster than all of the eurozone “big four” economies — France, Germany, Italy and Spain — but not as rapidly as the US.

“The fundamentals of the UK economy are still very much strong,” said Pushpin Singh, senior economist at CEBR. “London’s status as a financial and advisory services hub enduring, along with the wider strength of the services sector across the UK, will push UK growth.”

By 2038, Italy will drop out of the world’s top 10 economies by size, replaced by South Korea. The US and Germany will slip down the rankings, while India and Brazil — two developing economies with large populations — will rise within the top 10.

France will underperform the UK particularly due to its large public sector and high tax levels, while Germany’s manufacturing slowdown will help Britain narrow the gap, according to Singh.

Available at: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/uk-economy-forecast- -to-narrow-gdp-gap-with-germany-by-2038-1.2015577. Retrieved on: Dec. 26, 2023. Adapted.

How good is the U.S. economy? It’s beating pre-pandemic predictions.

Americans might be reluctant to believe it, but on paper, the U.S. economy is doing pretty well. So well, in fact, that we’re performing better than forecasts made even before the pandemic began.

The nation’s employers added another 199,000 jobs in November, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday. This means that overall employment is now 2 million jobs higher than was expected by now in forecasts made way back in January 2020 by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The job market isn’t the only front on which we have bested forecasts made before the pandemic. The overall size of the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, is larger than it was expected to be around now. The International Monetary Fund says that U.S. gross domestic product is higher today, in inflation-adjusted terms, than it had expected at the beginning of 2020. The IMF ran these calculations for countries around the world, and found the United States was an outlier in beating the organization’s pre-covid forecasts.

So why did well-regarded professional forecasters underestimate the strength of the economy? And how is it that jobs and GDP are doing better than they expected, even as inflation has been unmistakably worse?

To some extent, all these things are related. Forecasters obviously did not anticipate the pandemic. They also did not anticipate the unprecedentedly enormous government response to the coronavirus. When the public health crisis hit and disemployed millions of American workers, policymakers implemented unusually generous fiscal and monetary stimulus.

Such measures helped get people back to work sooner, and avoided the long, painful effort back to normal that had followed the Great Recession. Thus, faster job growth. They also massively amplified consumer demand, at a time when the productive capacity of the economy (i.e., companies’ ability to make and deliver the things their customers want) couldn’t keep up. Employers faced all kinds of shortages — of products, materials, workers — and consumers anxious to buy stuff raised the prices of whatever inventory companies actually had available. Thus, faster price growth.

If you had asked me back in January 2020 how Americans might feel about an economy with an “extra” 2 million jobs, unemployment less than 4 percent, and inflation just over 3 percent, I probably would have guessed the public would be pretty content. However people are still furious about the extra price growth they’ve already endured to date, and unimpressed by all that extra job growth. Maybe it’s human nature for people to view better jobs or pay as things they’ve earned, while a painful price increase is something inflicted upon them — even if both are, to some extent, two sides of the same coin.

Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ 2023/12/08/jobs-report-economy-beats-pandemicpredictions/. Retrieved on: Dec. 12, 2023. Adapted.

How good is the U.S. economy? It’s beating pre-pandemic predictions.

Americans might be reluctant to believe it, but on paper, the U.S. economy is doing pretty well. So well, in fact, that we’re performing better than forecasts made even before the pandemic began.

The nation’s employers added another 199,000 jobs in November, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday. This means that overall employment is now 2 million jobs higher than was expected by now in forecasts made way back in January 2020 by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The job market isn’t the only front on which we have bested forecasts made before the pandemic. The overall size of the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, is larger than it was expected to be around now. The International Monetary Fund says that U.S. gross domestic product is higher today, in inflation-adjusted terms, than it had expected at the beginning of 2020. The IMF ran these calculations for countries around the world, and found the United States was an outlier in beating the organization’s pre-covid forecasts.

So why did well-regarded professional forecasters underestimate the strength of the economy? And how is it that jobs and GDP are doing better than they expected, even as inflation has been unmistakably worse?

To some extent, all these things are related. Forecasters obviously did not anticipate the pandemic. They also did not anticipate the unprecedentedly enormous government response to the coronavirus. When the public health crisis hit and disemployed millions of American workers, policymakers implemented unusually generous fiscal and monetary stimulus.

Such measures helped get people back to work sooner, and avoided the long, painful effort back to normal that had followed the Great Recession. Thus, faster job growth. They also massively amplified consumer demand, at a time when the productive capacity of the economy (i.e., companies’ ability to make and deliver the things their customers want) couldn’t keep up. Employers faced all kinds of shortages — of products, materials, workers — and consumers anxious to buy stuff raised the prices of whatever inventory companies actually had available. Thus, faster price growth.

If you had asked me back in January 2020 how Americans might feel about an economy with an “extra” 2 million jobs, unemployment less than 4 percent, and inflation just over 3 percent, I probably would have guessed the public would be pretty content. However people are still furious about the extra price growth they’ve already endured to date, and unimpressed by all that extra job growth. Maybe it’s human nature for people to view better jobs or pay as things they’ve earned, while a painful price increase is something inflicted upon them — even if both are, to some extent, two sides of the same coin.

Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ 2023/12/08/jobs-report-economy-beats-pandemicpredictions/. Retrieved on: Dec. 12, 2023. Adapted.

How good is the U.S. economy? It’s beating pre-pandemic predictions.

Americans might be reluctant to believe it, but on paper, the U.S. economy is doing pretty well. So well, in fact, that we’re performing better than forecasts made even before the pandemic began.

The nation’s employers added another 199,000 jobs in November, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday. This means that overall employment is now 2 million jobs higher than was expected by now in forecasts made way back in January 2020 by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The job market isn’t the only front on which we have bested forecasts made before the pandemic. The overall size of the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, is larger than it was expected to be around now. The International Monetary Fund says that U.S. gross domestic product is higher today, in inflation-adjusted terms, than it had expected at the beginning of 2020. The IMF ran these calculations for countries around the world, and found the United States was an outlier in beating the organization’s pre-covid forecasts.

So why did well-regarded professional forecasters underestimate the strength of the economy? And how is it that jobs and GDP are doing better than they expected, even as inflation has been unmistakably worse?

To some extent, all these things are related. Forecasters obviously did not anticipate the pandemic. They also did not anticipate the unprecedentedly enormous government response to the coronavirus. When the public health crisis hit and disemployed millions of American workers, policymakers implemented unusually generous fiscal and monetary stimulus.

Such measures helped get people back to work sooner, and avoided the long, painful effort back to normal that had followed the Great Recession. Thus, faster job growth. They also massively amplified consumer demand, at a time when the productive capacity of the economy (i.e., companies’ ability to make and deliver the things their customers want) couldn’t keep up. Employers faced all kinds of shortages — of products, materials, workers — and consumers anxious to buy stuff raised the prices of whatever inventory companies actually had available. Thus, faster price growth.

If you had asked me back in January 2020 how Americans might feel about an economy with an “extra” 2 million jobs, unemployment less than 4 percent, and inflation just over 3 percent, I probably would have guessed the public would be pretty content. However people are still furious about the extra price growth they’ve already endured to date, and unimpressed by all that extra job growth. Maybe it’s human nature for people to view better jobs or pay as things they’ve earned, while a painful price increase is something inflicted upon them — even if both are, to some extent, two sides of the same coin.

Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ 2023/12/08/jobs-report-economy-beats-pandemicpredictions/. Retrieved on: Dec. 12, 2023. Adapted.

How good is the U.S. economy? It’s beating pre-pandemic predictions.

Americans might be reluctant to believe it, but on paper, the U.S. economy is doing pretty well. So well, in fact, that we’re performing better than forecasts made even before the pandemic began.

The nation’s employers added another 199,000 jobs in November, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday. This means that overall employment is now 2 million jobs higher than was expected by now in forecasts made way back in January 2020 by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The job market isn’t the only front on which we have bested forecasts made before the pandemic. The overall size of the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, is larger than it was expected to be around now. The International Monetary Fund says that U.S. gross domestic product is higher today, in inflation-adjusted terms, than it had expected at the beginning of 2020. The IMF ran these calculations for countries around the world, and found the United States was an outlier in beating the organization’s pre-covid forecasts.

So why did well-regarded professional forecasters underestimate the strength of the economy? And how is it that jobs and GDP are doing better than they expected, even as inflation has been unmistakably worse?

To some extent, all these things are related. Forecasters obviously did not anticipate the pandemic. They also did not anticipate the unprecedentedly enormous government response to the coronavirus. When the public health crisis hit and disemployed millions of American workers, policymakers implemented unusually generous fiscal and monetary stimulus.

Such measures helped get people back to work sooner, and avoided the long, painful effort back to normal that had followed the Great Recession. Thus, faster job growth. They also massively amplified consumer demand, at a time when the productive capacity of the economy (i.e., companies’ ability to make and deliver the things their customers want) couldn’t keep up. Employers faced all kinds of shortages — of products, materials, workers — and consumers anxious to buy stuff raised the prices of whatever inventory companies actually had available. Thus, faster price growth.

If you had asked me back in January 2020 how Americans might feel about an economy with an “extra” 2 million jobs, unemployment less than 4 percent, and inflation just over 3 percent, I probably would have guessed the public would be pretty content. However people are still furious about the extra price growth they’ve already endured to date, and unimpressed by all that extra job growth. Maybe it’s human nature for people to view better jobs or pay as things they’ve earned, while a painful price increase is something inflicted upon them — even if both are, to some extent, two sides of the same coin.

Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ 2023/12/08/jobs-report-economy-beats-pandemicpredictions/. Retrieved on: Dec. 12, 2023. Adapted.

How good is the U.S. economy? It’s beating pre-pandemic predictions.

Americans might be reluctant to believe it, but on paper, the U.S. economy is doing pretty well. So well, in fact, that we’re performing better than forecasts made even before the pandemic began.

The nation’s employers added another 199,000 jobs in November, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday. This means that overall employment is now 2 million jobs higher than was expected by now in forecasts made way back in January 2020 by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The job market isn’t the only front on which we have bested forecasts made before the pandemic. The overall size of the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, is larger than it was expected to be around now. The International Monetary Fund says that U.S. gross domestic product is higher today, in inflation-adjusted terms, than it had expected at the beginning of 2020. The IMF ran these calculations for countries around the world, and found the United States was an outlier in beating the organization’s pre-covid forecasts.

So why did well-regarded professional forecasters underestimate the strength of the economy? And how is it that jobs and GDP are doing better than they expected, even as inflation has been unmistakably worse?

To some extent, all these things are related. Forecasters obviously did not anticipate the pandemic. They also did not anticipate the unprecedentedly enormous government response to the coronavirus. When the public health crisis hit and disemployed millions of American workers, policymakers implemented unusually generous fiscal and monetary stimulus.

Such measures helped get people back to work sooner, and avoided the long, painful effort back to normal that had followed the Great Recession. Thus, faster job growth. They also massively amplified consumer demand, at a time when the productive capacity of the economy (i.e., companies’ ability to make and deliver the things their customers want) couldn’t keep up. Employers faced all kinds of shortages — of products, materials, workers — and consumers anxious to buy stuff raised the prices of whatever inventory companies actually had available. Thus, faster price growth.

If you had asked me back in January 2020 how Americans might feel about an economy with an “extra” 2 million jobs, unemployment less than 4 percent, and inflation just over 3 percent, I probably would have guessed the public would be pretty content. However people are still furious about the extra price growth they’ve already endured to date, and unimpressed by all that extra job growth. Maybe it’s human nature for people to view better jobs or pay as things they’ve earned, while a painful price increase is something inflicted upon them — even if both are, to some extent, two sides of the same coin.

Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ 2023/12/08/jobs-report-economy-beats-pandemicpredictions/. Retrieved on: Dec. 12, 2023. Adapted.

Essen: Germany's 'ugly duckling' city success (by Norman Miller)

Thanks to an innovative approach, the Germany city has catapulted from an industrial wasteland to one of Europe’s greened cities.

Located in the heart of western Germany's long-time industrial Ruhr region, the city of Essen spent much of the past 150 years marred by pollution, tainted by filthy mines and belching factories and lined by poisoned waterways. In just one year in the 1960s, a study noted that some 1.5 million tons of toxic dust, ashes and soot rained down on Essen's inhabitants, along with four million tons of sulphur dioxide. But a remarkable transformation has seen Essen go from being Germany's ugly duckling to one of Europe's greenest cities.

"Green urban development has acted as a driving force in Essen over the last decade," explained Simone Raskob, who helped oversee Essen's transformation through a mix of so-called Blue Green solutions: "Blue" for water-focused initiatives, and "Green" for land-based projects. This two-pronged approach helped catapult Essen to be declared the European Green Capital for 2017.

Essen's most high-profile project is the transformation of the Zollverein industrial complex – once the world's largest coal and coke production facility – from toxin-spewing industrial blackspot to an inspiring eco-park granted Unesco World Heritage status. Inside its giant former coal washing building, the impressive Ruhr Museum enthrals visitors with displays on the site's history and transformation between towering old machinery. A short walk away, the Red Dot Design Museum showcases examples of innovative global design in a former boiler house building repurposed by renowned architect Norman Foster. Ever since mining at Zollverein and the surrounding region ended in the late 1980s, woodland has spread across the vast site, and its trail-laced expanses are now home to more than 800 animal and plant species.

Yet, Essen isn't resting on its green laurels and is continuing to add eco-friendly initiatives. A 100km cycling 'super-highway’ is slowly taking shape atop old industrial railways. A string of nature-walking trails have also been created in and around the city to help boost local engagement with – and appreciation of – natural habitats. All the trails are easily accessible by public transport.

Among the city's many transformations are the creation of lakes and ponds by harvesting rainwater. But perhaps the toughest of Essen's solutions involved restoring the River Emscher, considered a biologically dead "open sewer" since the end of the 19th Century, thanks to the dumping of mining and factory slurry and waste water. After a two-decade clean-up programme, trout once again returned to the rejuvenated river in 2015. A recent count found more than 1,000 fish and animal species living along the Emscher, including previously endangered lapwings, kingfishers and beavers.

Though humans aren't yet encouraged to join the trout in the Emscher, an arena for swimming and boating hums with activity at Lake Baldeney, a broad expanse of water created behind a 9m dam on the similarly cleaned-up Ruhr river. When swimmers splashed here back in 2017, it was the first time bathing had been officially allowed there for 46 years.

From German eyesore to proud green city, Essen's green-and-blue approach isn't just benefitting outdoor enthusiasts and the environment but is also providing a shining example of how other cities can look to their industrial past to embrace a cleaner future.

Adapted from: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20231106-essen-germanys-ugly-duckling-city-success. Access on: 13 nov. 2023.

Essen: Germany's 'ugly duckling' city success (by Norman Miller)

Thanks to an innovative approach, the Germany city has catapulted from an industrial wasteland to one of Europe’s greened cities.

Located in the heart of western Germany's long-time industrial Ruhr region, the city of Essen spent much of the past 150 years marred by pollution, tainted by filthy mines and belching factories and lined by poisoned waterways. In just one year in the 1960s, a study noted that some 1.5 million tons of toxic dust, ashes and soot rained down on Essen's inhabitants, along with four million tons of sulphur dioxide. But a remarkable transformation has seen Essen go from being Germany's ugly duckling to one of Europe's greenest cities.

"Green urban development has acted as a driving force in Essen over the last decade," explained Simone Raskob, who helped oversee Essen's transformation through a mix of so-called Blue Green solutions: "Blue" for water-focused initiatives, and "Green" for land-based projects. This two-pronged approach helped catapult Essen to be declared the European Green Capital for 2017.

Essen's most high-profile project is the transformation of the Zollverein industrial complex – once the world's largest coal and coke production facility – from toxin-spewing industrial blackspot to an inspiring eco-park granted Unesco World Heritage status. Inside its giant former coal washing building, the impressive Ruhr Museum enthrals visitors with displays on the site's history and transformation between towering old machinery. A short walk away, the Red Dot Design Museum showcases examples of innovative global design in a former boiler house building repurposed by renowned architect Norman Foster. Ever since mining at Zollverein and the surrounding region ended in the late 1980s, woodland has spread across the vast site, and its trail-laced expanses are now home to more than 800 animal and plant species.

Yet, Essen isn't resting on its green laurels and is continuing to add eco-friendly initiatives. A 100km cycling 'super-highway’ is slowly taking shape atop old industrial railways. A string of nature-walking trails have also been created in and around the city to help boost local engagement with – and appreciation of – natural habitats. All the trails are easily accessible by public transport.

Among the city's many transformations are the creation of lakes and ponds by harvesting rainwater. But perhaps the toughest of Essen's solutions involved restoring the River Emscher, considered a biologically dead "open sewer" since the end of the 19th Century, thanks to the dumping of mining and factory slurry and waste water. After a two-decade clean-up programme, trout once again returned to the rejuvenated river in 2015. A recent count found more than 1,000 fish and animal species living along the Emscher, including previously endangered lapwings, kingfishers and beavers.

Though humans aren't yet encouraged to join the trout in the Emscher, an arena for swimming and boating hums with activity at Lake Baldeney, a broad expanse of water created behind a 9m dam on the similarly cleaned-up Ruhr river. When swimmers splashed here back in 2017, it was the first time bathing had been officially allowed there for 46 years.

From German eyesore to proud green city, Essen's green-and-blue approach isn't just benefitting outdoor enthusiasts and the environment but is also providing a shining example of how other cities can look to their industrial past to embrace a cleaner future.

Adapted from: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20231106-essen-germanys-ugly-duckling-city-success. Access on: 13 nov. 2023.

Essen: Germany's 'ugly duckling' city success (by Norman Miller)

Thanks to an innovative approach, the Germany city has catapulted from an industrial wasteland to one of Europe’s greened cities.

Located in the heart of western Germany's long-time industrial Ruhr region, the city of Essen spent much of the past 150 years marred by pollution, tainted by filthy mines and belching factories and lined by poisoned waterways. In just one year in the 1960s, a study noted that some 1.5 million tons of toxic dust, ashes and soot rained down on Essen's inhabitants, along with four million tons of sulphur dioxide. But a remarkable transformation has seen Essen go from being Germany's ugly duckling to one of Europe's greenest cities.

"Green urban development has acted as a driving force in Essen over the last decade," explained Simone Raskob, who helped oversee Essen's transformation through a mix of so-called Blue Green solutions: "Blue" for water-focused initiatives, and "Green" for land-based projects. This two-pronged approach helped catapult Essen to be declared the European Green Capital for 2017.

Essen's most high-profile project is the transformation of the Zollverein industrial complex – once the world's largest coal and coke production facility – from toxin-spewing industrial blackspot to an inspiring eco-park granted Unesco World Heritage status. Inside its giant former coal washing building, the impressive Ruhr Museum enthrals visitors with displays on the site's history and transformation between towering old machinery. A short walk away, the Red Dot Design Museum showcases examples of innovative global design in a former boiler house building repurposed by renowned architect Norman Foster. Ever since mining at Zollverein and the surrounding region ended in the late 1980s, woodland has spread across the vast site, and its trail-laced expanses are now home to more than 800 animal and plant species.

Yet, Essen isn't resting on its green laurels and is continuing to add eco-friendly initiatives. A 100km cycling 'super-highway’ is slowly taking shape atop old industrial railways. A string of nature-walking trails have also been created in and around the city to help boost local engagement with – and appreciation of – natural habitats. All the trails are easily accessible by public transport.

Among the city's many transformations are the creation of lakes and ponds by harvesting rainwater. But perhaps the toughest of Essen's solutions involved restoring the River Emscher, considered a biologically dead "open sewer" since the end of the 19th Century, thanks to the dumping of mining and factory slurry and waste water. After a two-decade clean-up programme, trout once again returned to the rejuvenated river in 2015. A recent count found more than 1,000 fish and animal species living along the Emscher, including previously endangered lapwings, kingfishers and beavers.

Though humans aren't yet encouraged to join the trout in the Emscher, an arena for swimming and boating hums with activity at Lake Baldeney, a broad expanse of water created behind a 9m dam on the similarly cleaned-up Ruhr river. When swimmers splashed here back in 2017, it was the first time bathing had been officially allowed there for 46 years.

From German eyesore to proud green city, Essen's green-and-blue approach isn't just benefitting outdoor enthusiasts and the environment but is also providing a shining example of how other cities can look to their industrial past to embrace a cleaner future.

Adapted from: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20231106-essen-germanys-ugly-duckling-city-success. Access on: 13 nov. 2023.