By Eric Heyer and Hervé Péléraux

At the end of 2012, five years after the start of the crisis, France’s GDP has still not returned to its earlier level (Figure 1). At the same time, the labour force in France has grown steadily and technical progress has constantly raised workers’ productivity. We are therefore more numerous and more productive than 5 years ago when output was lower: the explosion in unemployment is a symptom of this mismatch. Why had the shoots of recovery seen in 2009 been choked off by mid-2010? suite…»

By Eric Heyer

On April 17, the government presented its Stability Programme for 2013-2017 for the French economy. For the next two years (2013-2014), the government has relied on the projections of the European Commission in forecasting growth of 0.1% in 2013 and 1.2% in 2014. Our purpose here is not to revisit these forecasts, though they do seem overly optimistic, but rather to discuss the analysis and outlook for France for the period 2015-2017 that is explicit and sometimes implicit in this document. suite…»

By Eric Heyer

This text summarizes the OFCE’s 2013-2014 forecasts for the French economy.

In 2013, the French economy should see negative annual average growth, with a fall in GDP of 0.2%, before a modest recovery in 2014, with growth of 0.6 % (Table 1). This particularly mediocre performance is far from the path that an economy pulling out of a crisis should be taking. suite…»

By Xavier Timbeau

This text summarizes the April 2013 forecasts of the OFCE.

The global economic and financial crisis that began in late 2008 is now entering its fifth year. For the European Union, 2012 has been another year of recession, showing just how much the prospect of an end to the crisis, heralded so many times, has been contradicted by economic developments. Our forecasts for 2013 and 2014 can be summarized rather ominously: the developed countries will remain mired in a vicious circle of rising unemployment, protracted recession and growing doubts about the sustainability of public finances. suite…»

By Christophe Blot

The euro zone is still in recession. According to Eurostat, GDP fell again in the fourth quarter of 2012 (‑0.6%). This figure, which was below expectations, is the worst quarterly performance in the euro zone since the first quarter of 2009, and it is also the fifth consecutive quarter of a decline in activity. For 2012 as a whole, GDP decreased by 0.5%. This annual figure masks substantial heterogeneity in the zone (Figures 1 and 2), since Germany posted annual growth of 0.9% while for the second consecutive year Greece is likely to suffer a recession of more than 6%. Moreover, taking all the countries together, the growth rate will be lower in 2012 than in 2011, and some countries (Spain and Italy to name but two) will sink deeper into depression. This performance is all the more worrying as several months of renewed optimism had aroused hopes that the euro zone was recovering from the crisis. Were there grounds for such hope? suite…»

By Catherine Mathieu and Henri Sterdyniak

The 9th EUROFRAME Conference [1], which was held in Kiel on 8 June 2012, focused on economic policy issues in the European Union. The topic was « The euro zone in crisis: Challenges for monetary and fiscal policies ». Issue 127 of the “Débats et Politiques” collection of the OFCE Revue has published revised versions of twelve papers presented in the Conference[2], gathered in five themes: exchange rate imbalances, indicators of the debt crisis, budget rules, banking and financial issues, and strategies for resolving the crisis. suite…»

By Bruno Ducoudré and Eric Heyer

In its October 2012 forecasts, the OFCE has revised its growth forecast for 2012 and 2013. The major international institutions, the OECD, the IMF and the European Commission, also regularly review their growth forecasts to incorporate newly available information. An analysis of these revised forecasts is particularly interesting in that it shows that these institutions use low fiscal multipliers in developing their forecasts. In other words, the recessionary impact of fiscal policy has been underestimated by the OECD, the IMF and the European Commission, leading to substantial revisions of their growth forecasts, as is evidenced by the dramatic shifts by the IMF and the European Commission in the size of the multipliers. suite…»

By Christophe Blot, Catherine Mathieu and Christine Rifflart

This text summarizes the special study of the October 2012 forecast.

Since the summer of 2007, the central banks of the industrialized countries have intervened regularly to counter the negative impact of the financial crisis on the functioning of the banking and financial system and to help kick-start growth. Initially, key interest rates were lowered considerably, and then maintained at a level close to 0 [1]. In a second phase, from the beginning of 2009, the central banks implemented what are called unconventional measures. While these policies may differ from one central bank to another, they all result in an increase in the size of their balance sheets as well as a change in the composition of their balance sheet assets. However, three years after the economies in the United States, the euro zone and the United Kingdom hit bottom, it is clear that recovery is still a ways off, with unemployment at a high level everywhere. In Europe, a new recession is threatening [2]. Does this call into question the effectiveness of monetary policy and of unconventional measures more specifically? suite…»

By Céline Antonin, Christophe Blot and Danielle Schweisguth

This text summarizes the OFCE’s October 2012 forecasts for the economy of the euro zone.

After more than two years of crisis in the euro zone, this time the meeting of the European Council, held on 18 and 19 October, had nothing of the atmosphere of yet another last-chance summit. Even though discussions on the future banking union [1] were a source of tension between France and Germany, there was no sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of the European heads of state. However, it would be premature to assume that the crisis is coming to an end. It is sufficient to recall that the GDP of the euro zone has still not regained its pre-crisis level, and in fact declined again by 0.2% in the second quarter of 2012. This decline is forecast to continue, as we expect GDP to fall by 0.5% in 2012 and by 0.1% in 2013. Consequently, the unemployment rate in the euro zone, which has already surpassed its previous historical record from April 1997, will rise further, reaching 12.1% by end 2013. What then are the reasons for the lull? Can the euro zone quickly resume its growth and hope to finally put an end to the social crisis? suite…»

By Eric Heyer

This text summarizes the OFCE’s October 2012 forecasts for the French economy.

The French economy is expected to see average annual growth of 0.1% in 2012 and 0.0% in 2013. This performance is particularly poor and far from the path that an economy recovering from a crisis would normally experience. suite…»