Historically, there is a close relationship in the US and the euro area between, on the one hand, a measure of price pressures based on survey data on manufacturing delivery times and input prices, and, on the other hand, core inflation. The recent flash purchasing managers’ indices show that price pressures may be peaking, thereby providing hope that inflation will follow in the not-too-distant future. This will focus the attention to the speed of decline in inflation. A very slow process would be highly discomforting, raising fears that ever-higher interest rates would end up causing a recession. Everybody wants slower growth to bring inflation under control, but nobody wants the growth engine to stall.
Our different uncertainty gauges are complementary, in terms of scope and methodology. US economic policy uncertainty based on media coverage has eased slightly after a significant increase, reflecting concern about the impact of aggressive monetary policy tightening. In the US, business uncertainty about sales revenue growth has been stable but uncertainty about employment growth has rebounded somewhat, probably reflecting ongoing difficulties in filling vacancies. The European Commission’s uncertainty index, after having jumped following the war in Ukraine, has stabilised.
Global PMI numbers point to a significant slowdown in global economic activity. The new export orders sub-index dropped to 48.1 in March, below the threshold for expansion, and was unchanged in April. More specifically, new export orders for Taiwan recorded a heavy fall (down 17.2% m/m), the biggest drop for fourteen months. Although a pullback was expected, following a strong rise in March (21.6%), the scale of the decline was surprising.
