FINANCIAL NEWS HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK

  • A wide dispersion of forecasts for U.S. growth over the next year reflects high levels of uncertainty around the duration of the health crisis as well as future government supports.
  • Assuming a modest fiscal package passes Congress this fall and a vaccine becomes available by the middle of next year, the American economy should recover most of what was lost through the pandemic by the end of 2021.
  • Inflation data showed an acceleration in price growth in August. Total CPI was up 1.3% year-on-year in August, continuing its recovery from only 0.1% in May.

Economic Key Financial Forecasts

 

 


A Wide Dispersion of Expectations for Recovery

Financial News: Spending Recovery Retreats as Summer Ends As we head into the final days of summer, it’s a good time to step back and evaluate the prospects for the American economy over the next year. The dispersion of economic growth forecasts has perhaps never been higher. While forecasters all expect a meaningful decline in activity this year, that is due to what’s already been recorded. Meanwhile, forecasts for growth in 2021 in the Blue Chip survey range from over 6% at the high end, to under 2% at the low end. At the high-end, this recovers all the activity lost to the pandemic, while at the low end, it is nothing short of stagnation.

This wide dispersion reflects the unprecedented level of uncertainty around the course of the pandemic, as well as its secondary economic impacts. This can be seen in the wide array of underlying assumptions among forecasters around items key to the outlook. For example: when and if a vaccine becomes available, how effective and permanent it will be, how much future government support will be provided.

We do not claim to have any better insight on these questions than other forecasters, but we have tried to make plausible assumptions to ground our forecast. In the case of the health questions, we assume that a vaccine or effective treatment becomes widely available by the second half of 2020.

Beyond the basic uncertainty around when and if we recover fully from the pandemic, we have little in the way of traditional macro models to gauge how consumers and businesses respond to health crises. This was true on the way down, but also on the way up. We can observe, based on recent data, that after an initial plunge, households have been more than willing to increase spending on durable goods – suggesting little permanent damage to household confidence. Rather, what’s holding back a broader recovery is service-sector areas of the economy where activity is directly impacted by the potential risk of infection. This offers reason to expect a fairly solid bounce back once these fears are allayed.

Financial News: Continuing Jobless Claims Remain Elevated Through the End of AugustIn the case of government policy, we are equally in the dark. The extraordinary fiscal supports early in the year have divorced measures of overall economic activity from household income. Spending rebounded as it did due to these supports. Congress continues to debate another package, but the chasm between Republicans and Democratic bills is roughly 10 times ($300 billion versus $3 trillion). So, we’re left making assumptions. We assume that Congress does eventually come up with some additional support, but closer to the lower range of outcomes, around $400 billion, split between individual checks and unemployment benefits.

With these assumptions in place, and assuming no major second wave of the virus leads to another round of shutdowns, it is reasonable to expect the American economy to recover much of what was lost to the pandemic over the past year. While growth appears likely to slow after its initial burst on reopening, it should pick up again once a vaccine is available. Importantly, much of the deficit in spending is due to high-income individuals, who should be able to dip into these accumulated saving to support growth once the virus threat has passed. As a result, we expect the level of GDP to regain its pre-recession level by the first quarter of 2022. We will be publishing our full views on the economic outlook next week and hope you will give them a read.

James Marple, Senior Economist | 416-982-2557


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