From Natixis today, “China’s muted inflationary pressure at home contrasts with booming export prices feeding global inflation”:
Category Archives: China
China GDP Forecast Revision
Even under optimistic assumptions, growth is going to miss the government’s target.
Another Economic Sitrep for China
From “GS Economic Indicators: China CAI Falls to -11% in April”:
China Economic Sitrep
Industrial output, manufacturing down. Retail sales down.
What To Make of the Chinese Sovereign Yield Curve?
The WorldofGovernmentBonds website provides 2s10s, 2s5s and 1s2s spreads for a whole bunch of countries (missing unfortunately my favorite the 3m10s). Here’s the yield curve for China as of today:
China Q1 GDP, Illustrated
NBS released GDP numbers for Q1 yesterday, surprising on the upside (1.3% q/q vs. 0.6% Bloomberg consensus, not annualized; 4.8% y/y vs. 4.4%).
US Inflation and Chinese Imports
One reason why inflation exceeded my estimates from earlier this year is the price of imports. Since 2020M02, goods import prices from China have risen 5.3%, after declining 5.8% over the preceding six years. The dollar depreciated by 9.4% over the same period, implying a exchange rate pass-through coefficient of 0.56.
Guest Contribution: “Is China’s growth rate negative?”
Today, we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by John G. Fernald, Jack Mueller, and Mark M. Spiegel (all of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco). Our views are our own, and not necessarily those of the Federal Board of Governors or the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
An Effective Anti-Inflationary Measure
As noted by Jeff Frankel:
In terms of what the president can actually control to reduce inflation, one neglected tool is trade policy. Former President Donald Trump put these tariffs on aluminum and steel, and everything we import from China — all kinds of goods. The tariffs raise prices to consumers. It seems to me a no-brainer to undo those barriers. Biden should be able to get China and other countries to reciprocally lower some barriers against us. But with or without that, removing tariffs could bring down consumer prices and prices to businesses for steel and aluminum and all kinds of inputs immediately. That’s the one thing that the government could most rapidly control.
The Extent and Implications of the China Slowdown
According to official data published by the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s growth q/q seasonally adjusted slowed considerably in Q3, to 0.2% (not annualized), below the Bloomberg consensus of 0.5%. The four quarter growth rate was 4.9%, vs consensus of 5.2%.