It is perhaps a contradiction in terms, but it was an uplifting week for the Eeyores of economic commentary.
Germany and Japan contract! The eurozone stagnates! Even the UK, which surprised everybody (including itself) to become a star economic performer last year, agonises that nominal wages have fallen for the first time since the financial crisis. Yet there is nothing fit to shock in this week’s economic headlines; and what may seem like continuing economic horror is good news for economic policy making.
Take Japan’s 6.8 per cent (annualised) contraction, which is universally attributed to a rise in the consumption tax from 5 to 8 per cent. Some claim it proves the increase was a mistake – one, moreover, which could derail prime minister Shinzo Abe’s “Abenomics” programme, perhaps Japan’s only hope of pulling out of its two-decade malaise. It is nothing of the sort.