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    The Era of Cheap and Plenty May Be Ending

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    Supplies of goods are coming up short in the pandemic, and prices have jumped. Some economists warn that the changes could linger.For the past three decades, companies and consumers benefited from cross-border connections that kept a steady supply of electronics, clothes, toys and other goods so abundant it helped prices stay low.But as the pandemic and the war in Ukraine continue to weigh on trade and business ties, that period of plenty appears to be undergoing a partial reversal. Companies are rethinking where to source their products and stocking up on inventory, even if that means lower efficiency and higher costs. If it lasts, such a shift away from fine-tuned globalization could have important implications for inflation and the world’s economy.Economists are debating whether recent supply chain turmoil and geopolitical conflicts will result in a reversal or reconfiguration of global production, in which factories that were sent offshore move back to the United States and other countries that pose less of a political risk.If that happens, a decades-long decline in the prices of many goods could come to an end or even begin to go in the other direction, potentially boosting overall inflation. Since around 1995, durable goods like cars and equipment have tamped down inflation, and prices for nondurable goods like clothing and toys have often grown only slowly.Those trends began to change in late 2020 after the onset of the pandemic, as shipping costs soared and shortages collided with strong demand to push car, furniture and equipment prices higher. While few economists expect the past year’s breakneck price increases to continue, the question is whether the trend toward at least slightly pricier goods will last.The answer could hinge on whether a shift away from globalization takes hold.“It would certainly be a different world — it might be a world of perhaps higher inflation, perhaps lower productivity, but more resilient, more robust supply chains,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said at an event last month when asked about a possible move away from globalization.Still, Mr. Powell said, it’s not obvious how drastically conditions will change. “It’s not clear that we’re seeing a reversal of globalization,” he said. “It’s clear that it’s slowed down.”Prices Have Shot UpPrices for durable goods had been falling for decades. Lately, though, they’ve been a major factor pushing inflation higher.

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    Annual Change in the Personal Consumption Expenditure Index by Category
    Source: Commerce DepartmentBy The New York TimesThe period of global integration that prevailed before the pandemic made many of the things Americans buy cheaper. Computers and other technology made factories more efficient, and they chugged out sneakers, kitchen tables and electronics at a pace unmatched in history. Companies slashed their production cost by moving factories offshore, where wages were lower. The adoption of steel shipping containers, and ever larger cargo ships, allowed products to be whisked from Bangladesh and China to Seattle and Tupelo and everywhere in between for astonishingly low prices.But those changes also had consequences for American factory workers, who saw many jobs disappear. The political backlash to globalization helped carry former President Donald J. Trump into office, as he promised to bring factories back to the United States. His trade wars and rising tariffs encouraged some companies to move operations out of China, although typically to other low-cost countries like Vietnam and Mexico.Understand Inflation in the U.S.Inflation 101: What is inflation, why is it up and whom does it hurt? Our guide explains it all.Your Questions, Answered: Times readers sent us their questions about rising prices. Top experts and economists weighed in.Interest Rates: As it seeks to curb inflation, the Federal Reserve announced that it was raising interest rates for the first time since 2018.How Americans Feel: We asked 2,200 people where they’ve noticed inflation. Many mentioned basic necessities, like food and gas.Supply Chain’s Role: A key factor in rising inflation is the continuing turmoil in the global supply chain. Here’s how the crisis unfolded.The pandemic also exposed the snowball effect of highly optimized supply chains: Factory shutdowns and transportation delays made it difficult to secure some goods and parts, including semiconductors that are crucial for electronics, appliances and cars. Shipping costs have soared by a factor of 10 in just two years, erasing the cost savings of making some products overseas.Starting late in 2020, prices for washing machines, couches and other big products jumped sharply as production limitations collided with high demand.Inflation has only accelerated since. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has further snarled supply chains, raising the prices of gas and other commodities in recent months and helping to push the Fed’s closely watched inflation index up 6.6 percent over the year through March.That is the fastest pace of inflation since 1982, and price gains are touching the highest level in decades across many advanced economies, including the eurozone and Britain.Many economists expect price increases for durable goods to cool substantially in the months ahead, which should help calm overall price gains. Data from March suggested that they were beginning to moderate. Rising Fed interest rates could help temper buying, as borrowing to buy cars, machines or home improvement supplies becomes more expensive.But there are still questions about whether — in light of what companies and countries have learned — major products will return to the steady price declines that were the norm before the coronavirus.It’s not clear yet to what extent factories are moving closer to home. A “reshoring index” published by Kearney, a management consulting firm, was negative in 2020 and 2021, indicating that the United States was importing more manufactured goods from low-cost countries.But more firms reported moving their supply chains out of China to other countries, and American executives were more positive about bringing more manufacturing to the United States.Duke Realty, which rents warehouse and industrial facilities in the United States, expects the change to be a source of demand in years to come, though the reworking may take a while. Customers are “now future-proofing their supply chains,” Steve Schnur, the firm’s chief operating officer, said on an earnings call last week.“Some reshoring is occurring — let’s make no mistake about that,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director general of the World Trade Organization, said in an interview. But the data show that most businesses are mitigating risk by building up their inventories and finding additional suppliers in low-cost countries, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala said. That process could end up integrating poorer countries in Africa and other parts of the world more deeply into global value chains, she said.Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary, said last month that supply chains had proved too vulnerable given the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, and urged a reorientation around “a large group of trusted partners,” an approach she called “friendshoring.”The approach might result in some higher costs, she said, but it would be more resilient, and a large enough group would allow countries to maintain efficiencies from the global division of labor.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 6What is inflation? More

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    Governments Tighten Grip on Global Food Stocks, Sending Prices Higher

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    Dozens of countries have thrown up trade barriers in the past two months to protect scarce supplies of food and commodities, but experts say the policies will only exacerbate a global food crisis.WASHINGTON — Ukraine has limited exports of sunflower oil, wheat, oats and cattle in an attempt to protect its war-torn economy. Russia has banned sales of fertilizer, sugar and grains to other nations.Indonesia, which produces more than half the world’s palm oil, has halted outgoing shipments. Turkey has stopped exports of butter, beef, lamb, goats, maize and vegetable oils.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has unleashed a new wave of protectionism as governments, desperate to secure food and other commodities for their citizens amid shortages and rising prices, erect new barriers to stop exports at their borders.The measures are often well intended. But like the panic-buying that stripped grocery store shelves at various moments of the pandemic, the current wave of protectionism will only compound the problems that governments are trying to mitigate, trade experts warn.Export restrictions are making grains, oils, meat and fertilizer — already at record prices — more expensive and even harder to come by. That is placing an even greater burden on the world’s poor, who are paying an ever-larger share of their income for food, increasing the risk of social unrest in poorer countries struggling with food insecurity.Since the beginning of the year, countries have imposed a total of 47 export curbs on food and fertilizers — with 43 of those put in place since the invasion of Ukraine in late February, according to tracking by Simon Evenett, a professor of international trade and economic development at the University of St. Gallen.“Before the invasion, there’s a very small number of attempts to try and restrict exports of food and fertilizers,” Mr. Evenett said. “After the invasion you see a huge uptick.”The cascade of new trade barriers comes as the war in Ukraine, and the sanctions imposed by the West on Russia, are further straining supply chains that were already in disarray from the pandemic. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, pig iron, nickel and natural gas, and a major supplier of coal, crude oil and fertilizer. Ukraine is the world’s largest exporter of sunflower seed oil and a significant exporter of wheat, pig iron, maize and barley.With countries facing severe threats to supplies of basic goods, many policymakers have quickly dropped the language of open markets and begun advocating a more protective approach. Recommendations range from creating secure supply chains for certain critical materials in friendly countries to blocking exports and “reshoring” foreign factories, bringing operations back to their home countries.In a speech last week, Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary, said the pandemic and the war had revealed that American supply chains, while efficient, were neither secure nor resilient. While cautioning against “a fully protectionist direction,” she said the United States should work to reorient its trade relationships toward a large group of “trusted partners,” even if it meant somewhat higher costs for businesses and consumers.Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the director general of the World Trade Organization, said in a speech on Wednesday that the war had “justifiably” added to questions about economic interdependence. But she urged countries not to draw the wrong conclusions about the global trading system, saying it had helped drive global growth and provided countries with important goods even during the pandemic.“While it is true that global supply chains can be prone to disruptions, trade is also a source of resilience,” she said.The W.T.O. has argued against export bans since the early days of the pandemic, when countries including the United States began throwing up restrictions on exporting masks and medical goods and removed them only gradually.Now, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered a similar wave of bans focused on food. “It’s like déjà vu all over again,” Mr. Evenett said.Protectionist measures have cascaded from country to country in a manner that is particularly evident when it comes to wheat. Russia and Ukraine export more than a quarter of the world’s wheat, feeding billions of people in the form of bread, pasta and packaged foods.Mr. Evenett said the current wave of trade barriers on wheat had begun as the war’s protagonists, Russia and Belarus, clamped down on exports. The countries that lie along a major trading route for Ukrainian wheat, including Moldova, Serbia and Hungary, then began restricting their wheat exports. Finally, major importers with food security concerns, like Lebanon, Algeria and Egypt, put their own bans into effect.Mr. Evenett said the dynamic was “still unfolding” and likely to get worse in the months to come. Ukraine’s summer growing season for wheat is being disrupted as fighting keeps farmers away from their fields and pulls workers off to war. And grocery stores in Spain, Greece and Britain are already introducing restrictions on the amount of cereals or oil people can buy.“We’re already feeling the pinch in Europe of limited supplies of these key crops,” he said.Several other consequential export bans on food are unrelated to the war, but they will still play into the global dynamic of rising prices.A palm oil processing plant in Indonesia’s Riau Province. The country has halted outgoing shipments of palm oil, a key ingredient in packaged food.Kemal Jufri for The New York TimesChina began ordering its firms to stop selling fertilizer to other countries last summer, in order to preserve supplies at home, Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Yilin Wang, a research analyst at the institute, wrote in a recent blog post. Now that Russia has also cut off exports of fertilizer, China’s ban will be even more harmful.“China’s decision to take fertilizer supplies off world markets to ensure its own food security only pushes the problem onto others,” they wrote, adding that “China’s ongoing export restrictions could hardly come at a worse time.”Indonesia’s restrictions on palm oil, a key ingredient in packaged foods, detergent and cosmetics, are in line with similar bans the country placed on exporting the product before the war in an attempt to keep the price of oil affordable for Indonesian households.Those measures will add to skyrocketing prices for vegetable oils, driven by a disruption in the supply from Ukraine, the world’s largest producer of sunflower oil.Governments that put these restrictions in place often argue that their duty is to put the needs of their own citizens first, and the W.T.O.’s rules allow countries to impose temporary measures for national security or safety. But the measures can easily backfire, helping to push up global prices further.Price increases for food have been felt particularly keenly in poorer countries in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, which depend on imported food.The Russia-Ukraine War and the Global EconomyCard 1 of 6Rising concerns. More

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    Biden Administration Plays Down Growth Decline in G.D.P. Report

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    The White House dismissed a slump in first-quarter growth that was driven by a quirk in inventories and a jump in imports, emphasizing that Thursday’s report on gross domestic product also pointed to underlying strength in consumer spending.G.D.P. declined 0.4 percent in the first quarter after adjusting for inflation, or 1.4 percent on an annualized basis, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Companies had stockpiled inventories in the fourth quarter and built them more slowly at the start of the year, and imports far outstripped exports as Americans bought goods from abroad, driving the decline.“While last quarter’s growth estimate was affected by technical factors, the United States confronts the challenges of Covid-19 around the world, Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and global inflation from a position of strength,” President Biden said in a statement following the release, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Biden also noted that “consumer spending, business investment, and residential investment increased at strong rates.”Mr. Biden and Democrats are facing a challenging midterm election year as inflation runs at its fastest pace in four decades, chipping away at household budgets and eroding consumer confidence. At the same time, the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates to try to keep rapid price increases from becoming permanent, which could begin to meaningfully cool down the economy just as voters head to the polls.The administration has tried to pin high inflation on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While the war has pushed gas and other commodity prices higher, inflation was high even before Russia’s attack.Republicans have seized on rising prices to blast Mr. Biden’s economic policies. The decline in growth at the start of the year gave them room to ramp up that criticism.“Accelerating inflation, a worker crisis, and the growing risk of a significant recession are the signature economic failures of the Biden administration,” Representative Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican, said in a news release on Thursday.Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, also blamed Democrats for the drop in growth and 40-year high inflation levels.“In 15 months, one-party Democrat rule has squandered America’s recovery and left you paying the price,” Mr. McCarthy wrote on Twitter.The Biden administration’s 2021 economic stimulus, which sent checks to households and provided other relief at a time when the job market was already recovering, has been criticized by economists for helping to stoke excessively strong consumer demand. That probably ramped up inflationary pressures as the economy reopened, some research has suggested.Republicans often seize on that to argue that the burst in inflation is the administration’s fault. But administration officials point out that their policies helped to drive a swift recovery, came at an uncertain moment, and built on a pandemic response started under the Trump administration.In a speech on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen defended the scale of the efforts to support the economy. She recalled the dire economic projections in the early days of the pandemic and said that the spending was needed to avert a worst-case scenario, though some economists warned that the final installation in 2021 was too much and too poorly targeted even at the time of its passage.“Throughout 2020, and into 2021, the path of the pandemic, including its severity and the role of future viral strains could not be predicted,” Ms. Yellen said at an event at the Brookings Institution held by the Hamilton Project and Hutchins Center. “Given this uncertainty, the recovery packages sought to protect against tail risk.” More

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    The prospect of lockdowns in Beijing fuels more concerns about supply chain disruptions.

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    The prospect of further lockdowns in China prompted a fresh wave of economic anxiety on Monday as investors and companies whose supply chains run through China contemplated the impact of 70 new virus cases that the Beijing government said it had detected over the weekend.The city government ordered one of its districts to test all 3.5 million of its residents for coronavirus in the coming days, a move that may be a prelude to a larger lockdown in China’s capital city. Shanghai, a major port and business center, has been locked down for roughly a month, part of China’s “zero Covid” strategy. Other Chinese cities both large and small have announced their own restrictions on the movement of residents in a bid to keep the virus from spreading.The lockdowns present yet another challenge for global supply chains that have been stressed by pandemic shutdowns and the war in Ukraine, leading to greater competition for goods and higher prices that are fueling inflation worldwide.While the Chinese authorities have sought to keep factories and especially ports operating by keeping workers on the premises in so-called closed-loop systems, the lockdowns have interrupted shipments and lengthened delivery times for many of the global companies that depend on Chinese factories.Phil Levy, the chief economist at Flexport, a freight forwarder, said in an email that while Beijing is an important city, “it is not at the heart of factory production or supply chain operations.” He said lockdowns there would have a more limited impact than previous restrictions in Shanghai and Guangdong, where ports continued to mostly operate.But the effects would depend on where outbreaks occurred — for example whether they shut down a port — and how long lockdowns persisted, Mr. Levy added. “This is a relatively slow part of the year, but there is plenty of catch-up to be done, and things will soon be due to build. The costs will mount the longer this lasts.”The disruptions that are still unfolding in Shanghai and other Chinese cities are likely to reverberate along global supply chains in the coming months. Andrea Huang, a senior director at Overhaul, which monitors company supply chains, said with lockdowns not expected to ease until early or mid-May, the ripple effects for industries like auto and consumer electronics would extend into June or July.In Shanghai, the local authorities on Friday selected some companies in the automotive, semiconductor and other key industries to restart production, but the vast majority of enterprises remain shuttered.Activity at the port has also slowed. According to data from Project44, a logistics platform, the number of vessels that were berthing at the Shanghai port last week had dropped by about half since the lockdown began, while the number of vessels seeking to call at the nearby port of Ningbo jumped as shipping companies tried to get around restrictions. The time that imported containers were spending in the port had also risen sharply, from 4.6 days on March 28 to 14 days on April 23, the company said, as coronavirus testing requirements for truck drivers limited the ability to get containers in and out of the port.Fears of broader lockdowns weighed on global stocks on Monday, while oil and other commodities also fell in anticipation of lower demand.Elisabeth Waelbroeck-Rocha, chief international economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said that, in addition to disrupting global supply chains and fueling inflation, coronavirus outbreaks and accompanying lockdowns had undermined Chinese economic growth in March and April, making China unlikely to reach its target of 5.5 percent growth in gross domestic product in 2022.The epicenter of the outbreak shifted from Jilin Province in the northeast to Shanghai, a manufacturing base for high-end auto components, but smaller-scale outbreaks in other regions have largely been brought under control, she wrote in a note. More

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    Rapid Inflation, Lower Employment: How the U.S. Pandemic Response Measures Up

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    The United States spent more on its policy response than other advanced economies. Now economists are revisiting how that worked.The United States spent more aggressively to protect its economy from the pandemic than many global peers, a strategy that has helped to foment more rapid inflation — but also a faster economic rebound and brisk job gains.Now, though, America is grappling with what many economists see as an unsustainable worker shortage that threatens to keep inflation high and may necessitate a firm response by the Federal Reserve. Yet U.S. employment has not recovered as fully as in Europe and some other advanced economies. That reality is prodding some economists to ask: Was America’s spending spree worth it?As the Fed raises interest rates and economists increasingly warn that it may take at least a mild recession to bring inflation to heel, risks are mounting that America’s ambitious spending will end up with a checkered legacy. Rapid growth and a strong labor market rebound have been big wins, and economists across the ideological spectrum agree that some amount of spending was necessary to avoid a repeat of the painfully slow recovery that followed the previous recession. But the benefits of that faster recovery could be diminished as rising prices eat away at paychecks — and even more so if high inflation prods central bank policymakers set policy in a way that pushes up unemployment down the road.“I’m worried that we traded a temporary growth gain for permanently higher inflation,” said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University and a former economic official in the Obama administration. His concern, he said, is that “inflation could stay higher, or the Fed could control it by lowering output in the future.”The Biden administration has repeatedly argued that, to the extent the United States is seeing more inflation, the policy response to the pandemic also created a stronger economy.“We got a lot more growth, we got less child poverty, we got better household balance sheets, we have the strongest labor market by some metrics I’ve ever seen,” Jared Bernstein, an economic adviser to President Biden, said in an interview. “Were all of those accomplishments accompanied by heat on the price side? Yes, but some degree of that heat showed up in every advanced economy, and we wouldn’t trade that back for the historic recovery we helped to generate.”Inflation has picked up around the world, but price increases have been quicker in America than in many other wealthy nations.Consumer prices were up 9.8 percent in March from a year earlier, according to a measure of inflation that strips out owner-occupied housing to make it comparable across countries. That was faster than in Germany, where prices rose 7.6 percent in the same period; the United Kingdom, where they rose 7 percent; and other European countries. Other measures similarly show U.S. inflation outpacing that of its global peers.The Rise of InflationInflation has risen worldwide in the past year, but the increase has been fastest in the United States.

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    Change in consumer prices from a year earlier
    Note: Euro area and U.K. data are Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices. U.S. data is the Consumer Price Index excluding owners’ equivalent rent.Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, O.E.C.D., EurostatBy The New York TimesThe comparatively large jump in prices in America owes at least partly to the nation’s ambitious spending. Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco attributed about half of the nation’s 2021 annual price increase to the government’s spending response. The researchers estimated the number, which is imprecise, by measuring America’s inflation outcome compared with what happened in countries that spent less.“The size of the package was very large compared to any other country,” said Òscar Jordà, a co-author on the study.Understand Inflation in the U.S.Inflation 101: What is inflation, why is it up and whom does it hurt? Our guide explains it all.Your Questions, Answered: Times readers sent us their questions about rising prices. Top experts and economists weighed in.Interest Rates: As it seeks to curb inflation, the Federal Reserve announced that it was raising interest rates for the first time since 2018.How Americans Feel: We asked 2,200 people where they’ve noticed inflation. Many mentioned basic necessities, like food and gas.Supply Chain’s Role: A key factor in rising inflation is the continuing turmoil in the global supply chain. Here’s how the crisis unfolded.The Trump and then Biden administrations spent about $5 trillion on pandemic relief in 2020 and 2021 — far more as a share of the nation’s economy than what other advanced economies spent, based on a database compiled by the International Monetary Fund. Much of that money went directly to households in the form of stimulus checks, expanded unemployment insurance and tax credits for parents.Payments to households helped to fuel rapid consumer demand and quick economic growth — progress that has continued into 2022. A global economic outlook released by the International Monetary Fund last week showed that America’s economy is expected to expand by 3.7 percent this year, faster than the roughly 2 percent trend that prevailed before the pandemic and the 3.3 percent average expected across advanced economies this year.That comes on the heels of even more rapid 2021 growth. And as the U.S. economy has expanded so quickly, unemployment has plummeted. After spiking to 14.7 percent in early 2020, joblessness is now roughly back to the 50-year lows that prevailed prior the pandemic.That’s a victory that politicians have celebrated. “Our economy roared back faster than most predicted,” Mr. Biden said in his State of the Union address last month. A major report from the White House on April 14 noted that the United States has experienced a faster recovery than other advanced economies, as measured by gross domestic product, consumer spending and other indicators.The Rebound in SpendingConsumer spending has recovered more quickly in the United States, even after accounting for faster inflation.

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    Change in per capita household spending since fourth quarter of 2019
    Notes: Quarterly data, adjusted for inflationSource: O.E.C.D.By The New York TimesBut increasingly, at least when it comes to the job market, America’s achievement looks less unique.Unemployment in the United States jumped much higher at the outset of the pandemic in part because America’s policies did less to discourage layoffs than those in Europe. While many European governments paid companies to keep workers on their payrolls, the U.S. focused more on providing money directly to those who lost their jobs.Joblessness fell fast in the United States, too, but that was also true elsewhere. Many European countries, Canada and Australia are now back to or below their prepandemic unemployment rates, data reported by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development showed.And when it comes to the share of people who are actually working, the United States is lagging some of its global peers. The nation’s employment rate is hovering around 71.4 percent, still down slightly from nearly 71.8 percent before the pandemic began.By comparison, the eurozone countries, Canada and Australia have a higher employment rates than before the pandemic, and Japan’s employment rate has fully recovered.The Rebound in JobsEmployment rates fell further in the U.S. than in many peer countries, and have not yet returned to their prepandemic level.

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    Change in employment rate since fourth quarter of 2019
    Note: Quarterly data, ages 15 to 64Source: O.E.C.D.By The New York TimesEurope’s more complete employment recovery may partly reflect its different regulations and different approach to supporting workers during the pandemic, said Nick Bennenbroek, international economist at Wells Fargo. European aid programs effectively paid companies to keep people on the payroll even when they couldn’t go to work, while the United States supported workers directly through the unemployment insurance system.That relatively subtle difference had a major consequence: Because fewer Europeans were separated from employers, many flowed right back into their old jobs as the economy reopened. Meanwhile, pandemic layoffs touched off an era of soul-searching and job shuffling in the United States.“You didn’t have as much motivation to reconsider your assessment of your work-life situation,” Mr. Bennenbroek said. “What we initially saw in the U.S. was much more disruptive.”Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 6What is inflation? More

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    World Economic Outlook Dims as War and Pandemic Cast a Pall

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    The International Monetary Fund’s new World Economic Outlook expects growth to slow to 3.6 percent this year. The group is one of many to slash their forecasts recently.WASHINGTON — The world economy has entered a period of intense uncertainty as a capricious pandemic and the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine combine to fuel rapid inflation and weigh on an already fragile global recovery.These colliding challenges are confronting policymakers and central bankers in the United States and Europe as they seek to bring down inflation without slowing growth so much that their economies tip into recession.In the last week, international organizations and think tanks have begun slashing their forecasts for growth and trade as they assess the war’s disruptions to global energy, food and commodity supplies, as well as China’s sweeping lockdowns to contain a renewed coronavirus outbreak.The pall over the world economy was underscored on Tuesday by the International Monetary Fund, which said in its World Economic Outlook that global output was expected to slow this year to 3.6 percent, from 6.1 percent in 2021. That is a downgrade from a January forecast of 4.4 percent growth this year.“Global economic prospects have been severely set back, largely because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the I.M.F.’s chief economist, said at a news briefing on Tuesday. “This crisis unfolds as the global economy has not yet fully recovered from the pandemic.”The impact of Russia’s war on the global economy will be a central topic for policymakers convening in Washington this week for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.As the meetings got underway, policymakers grappled with how to maintain pressure on Russia while keeping the economic recovery on track and protecting the world’s poor from rising prices. While some countries that export commodities will benefit from a period of higher fuel and food prices, for most economies the disruptions weigh heavily.“The war has made an already dire situation worse,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in a speech about rising food insecurity on Tuesday. “Price and supply shocks are already materializing, adding to global inflationary pressures, creating risks to external balances, and undermining the recovery from the pandemic.”On Wednesday, Ms. Yellen plans to attend an opening session that will include Ukraine’s finance minister as the United States looks to stand with allies in opposition to Russia’s invasion, a Treasury official said. However, Ms. Yellen will not attend some Group of 20 sessions, such as those on international financial architecture and sustainable finance, if Russians are participating.Against that backdrop, the I.M.F.’s new data revealed a daunting set of economic headwinds. Mr. Gourinchas said the war was slowing growth and spurring inflation, which he described as a “clear and present danger” for many countries. He added that disruptions to Russian supplies of oil, gas and metals, along with Ukrainian exports of wheat and corn, will ripple through commodities markets and across the global economy “like seismic waves.”He acknowledged that the trajectory of the global economy would depend on how the war proceeded and the ultimate breadth of the sanctions that the United States and its allies in Europe and Asia imposed on Russia.“Uncertainty around these projections is considerable, well beyond the usual range,” Mr. Gourinchas said. “Growth could slow down further while inflation could exceed our projections if, for instance, sanctions extend to Russian energy exports.”Ukraine and Russia are facing the most dire economic consequences from the war. The I.M.F. expects the Ukrainian economy to contract by 35 percent this year, while Russia’s economy is projected to shrink 8.5 percent. Mr. Gourinchas noted that the Russian authorities had so far managed to prevent a collapse of their financial system and avoided bank failures but said further sanctions targeting Russia’s energy industry could have a significant impact on its economy.The sweeping sanctions that America and its allies have already imposed on Russia are the main factor contributing to the downward revision of the I.M.F.’s global growth outlook, Mr. Gourinchas said. He added that a tightening of restrictions on Russian energy exports would be an “adverse scenario” that would further slow output around the world.Rising prices around the world show no signs of abating, the I.M.F. said, even if supply chain problems ease. It expects inflation to remain elevated throughout the year, projecting it at 5.7 percent in advanced economies and 8.7 percent in emerging markets. Inflation hit 8.5 percent in the United States last month, the fastest 12-month pace since 1981.An empty street in Shanghai this week. The World Bank warned that the lingering pandemic and Covid-19 lockdowns in China could amplify income inequality and poverty rates.Aly Song/ReutersOther international organizations and research groups have also pared back their global growth forecasts. Economists at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank, expect global growth to decline from a rapid 5.8 percent in 2021 to 3.3 percent annually in 2022 and 2023.The World Bank also expressed alarm this week about the state of the global economy, warning that the lingering pandemic, Covid-19 lockdowns in China and higher inflation could amplify income inequality and poverty rates. It lowered its 2022 growth forecast to 3.2 percent from 4.1 percent.“I’m deeply concerned about developing countries,” David Malpass, the World Bank president, said on Monday. “They’re facing sudden price increases for energy, fertilizer and food, and the likelihood of interest rate increases. Each one hits them hard.”According to the Bank of International Settlements, more than half of emerging economies have inflation rates above 7 percent. And 60 percent of “advanced economies,” including the United States and the euro area, have inflation over 5 percent, the largest share since the 1980s, the bank said.In Britain, inflation climbed to 7 percent in March, the highest level in 30 years.An April 12 survey of global investors by BofA Securities found that more than two-thirds were pessimistic about global growth prospects in the months ahead.The Russia-Ukraine War and the Global EconomyCard 1 of 6Rising concerns. More

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    What Will Happen if Russia Defaults on Its Debt?

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    The ultimate arbiter of a sovereign default is an open question but markets may have the final word.WASHINGTON — Russia is ambling toward a major default on its foreign debt, a grim milestone that it has not seen since the Bolshevik Revolution more than a century ago and one that raises the prospect of years of legal wrangling and a global hunt by bondholders for Russian assets.The looming default is the result of sanctions that have immobilized about half of Russia’s $640 billion of foreign currency reserves, straining the country’s ability to make bond repayments in the currency the debt was issued in — dollars. Girding for a default, Russia has already pre-emptively dismissed it as an “artificial” result of sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies, and it has threatened to contest such an outcome in court.The coming fight, which would probably pit Russia against big investors from around the world, raises murky questions over who gets to decide if a nation has actually defaulted in the rare case where sanctions have curbed a country’s ability to pay its debts.Russia does not appear likely to take the declaration of a default lightly. If that should occur, it would raise Russia’s cost of borrowing for years to come and effectively lock it out of international capital markets, weighing on an economy that is already expected to contract sharply this year. It would also be a stain on the economic stewardship of President Vladimir V. Putin that would underscore the costs Russia is incurring from its invasion of Ukraine.At stake for Russia, which has already suffered the abrupt rupture of decades of crucial business ties with the United States, Europe and other nations, is one of the underpinnings of economic growth: the ability to smoothly borrow money from outside its borders.Since Russia’s predicament is so unusual, it remains something of an open question who is the ultimate arbiter of a sovereign debt default.“This points to the squishiness and patchwork nature of sovereign debt markets,” said Tim Samples, a legal studies professor at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business and an expert on sovereign debt. “I think this is set to be convoluted and disputed for a variety of reasons.”Mr. Samples suggested that there could be a “cascade” of events that brings Russia to a default.The most direct verdict could come from the big credit ratings agencies, which have already signaled that Russia’s credit worthiness is eroding and that a default could be on the horizon.This past week, Moody’s warned that Russia’s payment of about $650 million of dollar-denominated debt in rubles on April 4 could be considered a default if it does not reverse course and pay in dollars by May 4, when a 30-day grace period concludes. That followed a similar warning earlier in the week by S&P Global, which placed Russia under a “selective default” rating.But it is not clear how the ratings agencies will weigh in if Russia fails to make payments after its grace periods run out because of European Union sanctions that have restricted the agencies from rating Russia. Spokesmen from Moody’s and S&P did not comment. A Fitch spokesman said he could not offer any comments on Russia’s creditworthiness in light of the sanctions.The Biden administration put additional pressure on Russia earlier this month when the Treasury Department started blocking Russia from making debt payments using dollars held in American banks. That new restriction was intended to force Russia to choose between draining the remaining dollar reserves it has in Russia or using new revenue (from natural gas payments, for example) to make bond payments and avoid defaulting on its debt.Russia can still make payments on Russian sovereign debt as long as it is not trying to use funds from Russian government accounts that are held in American financial institutions.After the grace period on the foreign currency bond payments expires on May 4, the next key moment will be May 25. That is when American bondholders will no longer be able to accept Russian debt payments under a temporary exemption that the Treasury Department has allowed.The Russian central bank’s offices in Moscow. A default would raise Russia’s cost of borrowing and effectively lock it out of international capital markets.The New York TimesWhile the verdict of the ratings agencies carries significant weight, bondholders will determine the consequences of Russia failing to make payments that were due or that violate the terms of its contracts. The bondholders could take a wait-and-see approach or declare that the bonds are immediately due and payable, which could cause other bonds with “cross default” provisions to also be in default.Another potential arbiter of default is the Credit Derivatives Determination Committee, which is a panel of investors in the market for default insurance, or credit-default swaps. The committee is deliberating whether Russia’s payments in rubles constitute a “failure to pay,” which would kick-start insurance payouts. The panel already ruled that the state-owned​​ Russian Railways JSC was in default for missing a bond interest payment.To some analysts, that decision and the payments in rubles mean that Russia already is technically in default.“If Russia doesn’t pay on time, doesn’t pay in the currency in the contract, that’s a default — it’s crystal clear,” said Timothy Ash, a senior sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management. “For all intents and purposes, Russia is already in default.”The Russia-Ukraine War and the Global EconomyCard 1 of 6Rising concerns. More

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    Britain’s inflation rate climbed to 7 percent, the highest in 30 years.

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    In Britain, several pieces of dispiriting economic news arrived this week: Prices are rising at their fastest pace in 30 years, wages adjusted for inflation fell the most in nearly eight years and the economy hardly grew in February.It is mounting evidence of what is turning out to be a challenging year for many, with the tightest squeeze on household budgets forecast since records began in 1956.Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, Britain’s economic growth had slowed. But that war has weakened Britain’s economic outlook, as is the case in many countries. Rising energy costs are passing through to household bills. Manufacturers, farmers and supermarkets have warned about the rising cost of essential inputs into their supply chain from goods produced in Russia and Ukraine — including metals, wheat, fertilizer and sunflower oil. The pain is wide-reaching: Even fish and chips, a traditionally cheap British staple, has jumped in price.The Consumer Prices Index rose 7 percent in March from a year earlier, up from 6.2 percent the previous month, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. That exceeded economists’ predictions. Inflation was driven by record prices for gasoline and diesel, as well as by large increases at restaurants and hotels, for food and drinks, and clothing and furniture.This broad-based increase in prices for products that are usually seen as less volatile “will be viewed with particular discomfort by the Bank of England,” Sandra Horsfield, an economist at Investec, wrote in a note. The central bank has raised interest rates three times since December to their prepandemic level in an effort to arrest price increases, even as policymakers have cut the outlook for economic growth.The statistics agency also said on Wednesday that wholesale prices were rising at their fastest pace since September 2008. Output prices of manufacturers rose nearly 12 percent in March from a year earlier, while their input prices rose 19 percent, a record high.On Tuesday, data showed Britain’s unemployment rate fell to 3.8 percent, back to its prepandemic low, while there are a record number of job vacancies. Signs of a tight labor market are fueling expectations that workers will be in a position to demand larger salaries. Wages, excluding bonuses, in December to February rose 4 percent from a year earlier, but at the moment the gains are being eaten away by inflation. Once adjusted for price increases, pay fell 1 percent, the most since mid-2014.The British economy has recovered from its pandemic slump, but growth is waning. After the Omicron wave subsided in February, bookings for accommodation and travel services increased, offering the main contributor to economic growth that month. The economy grew just 0.1 percent, as manufacturing of cars, electrical products and chemicals all declined, the statistics agency said on Monday. More