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ECONOMY

Euro hasn’t led to exploding prices

Though many Germans believe that prices have risen dramatically since the introduction of the euro a decade ago, statistical reality for most goods and service tells a different story.

Euro hasn't led to exploding prices
Photo: DPA

Consumer prices in Germany have risen by an annual average 1.6 percent in the 10 years since the introduction of euro banknotes and coins, the national statistics office Destatis said on Friday.

That is slower than in the 10 years before the euro, when inflation in Germany stood at an annual average 2.2 percent, the office said in a statement with a view to the 10th anniversary of the physical launch of the single currency on January 1, 2002.

Nevertheless, the statisticians pointed out that the cost of living in Germany increased sharply at the start of the 1990s in the wake of German unification.

But inflation slowed again in subsequent years and averaged 1.4 percent each year in the last six years of the existence of the Deutsche mark, between 1996-2001, the office said.

Over a much longer period, from the creation of the Deutsche mark in 1948 until 2001, inflation in Europe’s powerhouse economy stood at an annual average 2.6 percent, Destatis said.

Since the launch of the euro, raw materials prices – and fuel and energy in particular – have constituted the main factors behind rising prices.

By November this year, the prices of heating oil and fuel had risen by 85 percent higher over levels seen immediately before the introduction of euro banknotes and coins. Electricity prices have increased by 66 percent in the same period. By contrast, housing rents have risen by just 12 percent.

In the months following the introduction of the euro notes and coins there were widespread reports that businesses were charging much higher prices for basic goods and services. That led some Germans to refer to the currency as the Teuro, a combination of the word teuer, or expensive, and euro.

AFP/DPA/The Local/mdm

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ECONOMY

How is Denmark’s economy handling inflation and rate rises?

Denmark's economy is now expected to avoid a recession in the coming years, with fewer people losing their jobs than expected, despite high levels of inflation and rising interest rates, The Danish Economic Council has said in a new report.

How is Denmark's economy handling inflation and rate rises?

The council, led by four university economics professors commonly referred to as “the wise men” or vismænd in Denmark, gave a much rosier picture of Denmark’s economy in its spring report, published on Tuesday, than it did in its autumn report last year. 

“We, like many others, are surprised by how employment continues to rise despite inflation and higher interest rates,” the chair or ‘chief wise man’,  Carl-Johan Dalgaard, said in a press release.

“A significant drop in energy prices and a very positive development in exports mean that things have gone better than feared, and as it looks now, the slowdown will therefore be more subdued than we estimated in the autumn.”

In the English summary of its report, the council noted that in the autumn, market expectations were that energy prices would remain at a high level, with “a real concern for energy supply shortages in the winter of 2022/23”.

That the slowdown has been more subdued, it continued was largely due to a significant drop in energy prices compared to the levels seen in late summer 2022, and compared to the market expectations for 2023.  

The council now expects Denmark’s GDP growth to slow to 1 percent in 2023 rather than for the economy to shrink by 0.2 percent, as it predicted in the autumn. 

In 2024, it expects the growth rate to remain the same as in 2003, with another year of 1 percent GDP growth. In its autumn report it expected weaker growth of 0.6 percent in 2024.

What is the outlook for employment? 

In the autumn, the expert group estimated that employment in Denmark would decrease by 100,000 people towards the end of the 2023, with employment in 2024  about 1 percent below the estimated structural level. 

Now, instead, it expects employment will fall by just 50,000 people by 2025.

What does the expert group’s outlook mean for interest rates and government spending? 

Denmark’s finance minister Nikolai Wammen came in for some gentle criticism, with the experts judging that “the 2023 Finance Act, which was adopted in May, should have been tighter”.  The current government’s fiscal policy, it concludes “has not contributed to countering domestic inflationary pressures”. 

The experts expect inflation to stay above 2 percent in 2023 and 2024 and not to fall below 2 percent until 2025. 

If the government decides to follow the council’s advice, the budget in 2024 will have to be at least as tight, if not tighter than that of 2023. 

“Fiscal policy in 2024 should not contribute to increasing demand pressure, rather the opposite,” they write. 

The council also questioned the evidence justifying abolishing the Great Prayer Day holiday, which Denmark’s government has claimed will permanently increase the labour supply by 8,500 full time workers. 

“The council assumes that the abolition of Great Prayer Day will have a short-term positive effect on the labour supply, while there is no evidence of a long-term effect.” 

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