Economics

A quarter of Greek retail businesses disappeared altogether in the decade from 2010 to 2020, an indication of the heavy price paid by the sector during the financial crisis and then during the pandemic crisis, according to an Alpha Bank analysis.

Nouriel Roubini can't seem to shake the nickname "Dr Doom," but his predictions are usually gloomy. This reputation was confirmed in a discussion with Kathimerini on the sidelines of the Delphi Economic Forum, where he was one of its pre-eminent guests.

BELGRADE - According to an Ipsos survey, the Serbian financial sector expects inflation to be 8 pct in March 2024, unchanged relative to the previous six surveys, the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) has said.

In a statement, the central bank said an April Bloomberg survey reported lower one-year-ahead expected inflation (7.0 pct).

The Greek current account deficit fell by 3 billion euros in the January-February period this year compared with the corresponding period in 2022, to stand at €1.5 billion, the Bank of Greece said on Thursday. 

Falling wholesale food prices worldwide have not led to a drop in prices set by UK supermarkets, but the British Retail Consortium said that change was about to happen.

Inflation in Britain was expected to fall below 10 percent last month, but rising food prices prevented that from happening and, although there was a slight drop reported, it remained just above 10 percent.

In a pre-election period, sober assessments in general - and regarding economic developments in particular - do not prosper. Each party must present them in a light that favors its own narrative to voters, with a certain one-sidedness. The drop in unemployment in Greece is one side of the story.

The government has extended caps on the retail prices of electricity and natural gas for households, small commercial consumers and protected consumers until the end of the year, as has caps on retail electricity prices paid by SMEs.

BELGRADE - Serbian March inflation was 0.9 pct m-o-m and 16.2 pct y-o-y, with food and energy price increases still accounting for about two thirds of headline inflation, the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) said.

In a statement, it said m-o-m and y-o-y inflation in March was "in line with NBS projections for Q1."

President Joe Biden keeps seeing good economic news and bad public approval ratings. The unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent in March.

More than 236,000 jobs were added. But there has been no political payoff for the president.

U.S. adults are skipping past the jobs numbers and generally feeling horrible about the economy.

In a post-capitalist society, the integration of artificial intelligence into the economic system will dramatically reduce the role of the human factor. New systems for generating artificial thought and discourse such as ChatGPT, which compete with human cognition, are already creating a number of puzzles across the social sciences.