Is Spain now cooking its books?
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Is Spain now cooking its books?
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Re: Is Spain now cooking its books?
#2How did you get that link to work? Whenever I link to a ft.com link it brings up a request for me to subscribe to something. But your link worked fine.
Re: Is Spain now cooking its books?
#3How did you get that link to work? Whenever I link to a ft.com link it brings up a request for me to subscribe to something. But your link worked fine.
Maybe because it's the financial times blog instead of the actual financial times.
Re: Is Spain now cooking its books?
#4I live in Spain. From my understanding the ratio of Unemployment rate/GDP is very high because of the construction bubble collapse. That 9.7 increase are 80% because construction industry mainly. This bubble collapse affects much more to the increasing unemployment rate than to the GDP (which also does but less dramatically). That's is because we can't compare the ratios from Spain to other countries in Europe, as we have this additional problem.
Re: Is Spain now cooking its books?
#5I have not understood most of it (economics is not my strength and I've got a cold or a flu that gives me a headache) so I'll have to ask.
Could the divergence (or some of it) be explained by the off the books economy that is quite strong here in Spain?
There's plenty of stories of people being "unemployed" but having a job, and employed people with other ways to increase their capital (off-the-books renting, hidden side-jobs, non-declared extra hours,...).
Thanks.
Re: Is Spain now cooking its books?
#6I have not understood most of it (economics is not my strength and I've got a cold or a flu that gives me a headache) so I'll have to ask. Could the divergence (or some of it) be explained by the off the books economy that is quite strong here in Spain? There's plenty of stories of people being "unemployed" but having a job, and employed people with other ways to increase their capital (off-the-books renting, hidden…
The off-the-books economy of Spain, Italy and Greece is amazingly large in both the private and goverment sectors. Your really have to live there to appreciate its size.
Re: Is Spain now cooking its books?
#7I live in Spain. From my understanding the ratio of Unemployment rate/GDP is very high because of the construction bubble collapse. That 9.7 increase are 80% because construction industry mainly. This bubble collapse affects much more to the increasing unemployment rate than to the GDP (which also does but less dramatically). That's is because we can't compare the ratios from Spain to other countries in Europe, as we…
Spaniard here (full disclaimer).
@carlos reasoning seems to be supported by the fact Spain's productivity is going up after all the low skilled workers in construction were sacked.
Some of the comments of the FT are highly interesting.
Re: Is Spain now cooking its books?
#8I live in Spain. From my understanding the ratio of Unemployment rate/GDP is very high because of the construction bubble collapse. That 9.7 increase are 80% because construction industry mainly. This bubble collapse affects much more to the increasing unemployment rate than to the GDP (which also does but less dramatically). That's is because we can't compare the ratios from Spain to other countries in Europe, as we…
Spaniard here (full disclaimer). @carlos reasoning seems to be supported by the fact Spain's productivity is going up after all the low skilled workers in construction were sacked. Some of the comments of the FT are highly interesting.
I agree some of the comments in FT are very interesting.
I'm not saying that productivity is going up, it's in fact going down, as the article says -3.1 variation GDP 2008-2009. But the ratio of unemployment/varGDP is very different to other countries because of the additional unemployment from construction industry, which is the suspicious indicator used by the author.
In any case I personally agree with some of the comments in the FT article saying that Spanish government may artificially modify some figures.
Re: Is Spain now cooking its books?
#9I have not understood most of it (economics is not my strength and I've got a cold or a flu that gives me a headache) so I'll have to ask. Could the divergence (or some of it) be explained by the off the books economy that is quite strong here in Spain? There's plenty of stories of people being "unemployed" but having a job, and employed people with other ways to increase their capital (off-the-books renting, hidden…
The off-the-books economy of Spain, Italy and Greece is amazingly large in both the private and goverment sectors. Your really have to live there to appreciate its size.
And Ireland, and Portugal... Spot the pattern?