Senior economists Svitlana Maslova and Sylwia Nowak from the IMF’s European Department present and discuss the findings of the Fall 2019 Regional Economic Outlook report for Europe.
Growth is projected to decline in most European countries in 2019 and to recover only modestly in 2020, amid high uncertainty. Downside risks from a no-deal Brexit, escalating trade tensions, and sizable spillovers from trade and manufacturing weakness to other sectors loom large. At the same time, considerable differences in the pace of activity and price changes both across sectors, across markets, and across Europe’s advanced and emerging economies raise a number of questions. Can the services sector avoid the drag from manufacturing and trade? Can emerging Europe defy the slowdown in advanced Europe? And will robust wage growth, which has outpaced consumer price inflation and productivity gains in many countries, finally boost Europe’s subdued inflation? The REO presentation will address these questions, and discuss the appropriate policy mix in the context of the many risks on the horizon.
Speakers
Svitlana Maslova is a senior economist in the Emerging Economies Unit of the IMF’s European Department, where she co-authors the Regional Economic Outlook for Europe. Ms. Maslova has had a broad country experience, working in a number of countries in Europe and Asia and Pacific. She also contributed to the wide range of policy issues and the Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and Pacific. Prior to the IMF, Ms. Maslova worked at an investment bank in London. Her research interests include international trade and monetary policy. She holds an MPhil in Economics from the University of Cambridge.
Sylwia Nowak is a senior economist in the Emerging Economies Unit of the IMF’s European Department, where she co-authors the Regional Economic Outlook for Europe. Since joining the IMF in 2009, Ms. Nowak has worked on the Global Financial Stability Report; Regional Economic Outlook for the Asia-Pacific region; and country assignments in Asia, Europe, and South America. In 2015–2017, she was involved in creating the new enterprise risk management framework at the Fund, with lead responsibilities for design of innovative risk methodologies and strategic assessment of the risks the IMF faces. Her research interests include financial econometrics, forecasting, and empirical market microstructure. She holds a Ph.D. in Financial Econometrics and an M.S. in Applied Statistics from the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.
Discussant
Philipp Steinberg is Director-General of Economic Policy and Ministry Coordinator for Sustainable Development at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.
Chair
Kerstin Bernoth is Professor of Economics at the Hertie School and Deputy Head of Macroeconomics at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). Her research centres on empirical finance, monetary and fiscal policy and financial stability. Since 2015, Bernoth has also been a member of the Monetary Expert Panel of the European Parliament. She holds a PhD. from the University of Bonn and worked between 2004 and 2009 in the economic policy and research department of De Nederlandsche Bank, the central bank of the Netherlands.