Andreas Breitenfellner () (Oesterreichische Nationalbank) Martin Schneider () (Oesterreichische Nationalbank) Josef Schreiner () (Oesterreichische Nationalbank)
Additional information is available for the following
registered author(s):
The financial crisis, which has intensified since fall 2008, has led to deteriorated funding conditions, a decline in the confidence of economic players and a dramatic slump in world trade, thereby unleashing a global recession. Governments worldwide launched measures to stabilize the financial systems and stimulate economic activity, which helped prevent a further escalation of the financial crisis. Since economic stimulus measures require some time to take full effect, a deep recession must be anticipated for 2009. In the U.S.A., an end to the recession is not in sight, despite comprehensive measures taken to support the economy. The Federal Reserve System (Fed) cut key interest rates to their lowest level historically and is now pursuing unconventional policies in a bid to revive lending. In the euro area, recession also deepened in the fourth quarter of 2008, especially due to weakening export demand and investment; unemployment rose substantially. According to leading indicators and forecasts, the economic situation will continue to deteriorate in the first half of 2009. A glimmer of hope may be seen in the fact that a number of confidence indicators seem to have hit bottom at a low level in recent weeks, implying that the downturn may level out from the second half of 2009 and then come to an end. Driven particularly by falling energy, commodity and food prices, HICP inflation decelerated markedly in recent months and in both 2009 and 2010 is expected to remain significantly below the level of price stability as defined by the Eurosystem. The past few months have also shown that the previously fast-growing emerging economies cannot escape the crisis. In particular, a number of Central, Eastern and Southeastern European countries have been hit severely. Other countries in the region, by contrast, are facing a worse, albeit still more upbeat outlook than the euro area average. The global economic crisis also hit Austria in fall 2008, resulting in a steep slump in goods exports and industrial production in October 2008. The OeNB economic indicator currently predicts real GDP to contract by 1.5% in the first quarter of 2009 (seasonally and working-day adjusted, on a quarterly basis). The Austrian economy is expected to continue to shrink by 0.7% in the second quarter of 2009. JEL classification: E2, E3, O1
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Volume (Year): (2009) Issue (Month): 1 (April 2009) Pages: 10-28 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
Order Information: Postal: Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Documentation Management and Communications Services, Otto-Wagner Platz 3, A-1090 Vienna, Austria Email:
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Manfred Fluch).
Did you know? Citation analysis on IDEAS includes online papers that are freely accessible and whose text could be automatically analyzed, currently about 210000 papers.