Economy, Strategy & Finance Data Reactions

Increasing recognition of the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities on portfolio value is driving institutional investors engagement with companies on ESG.

Our March 2018 Consumer Confidence Survey shows evidence that e-commerce continues to grow among U.S. consumers of most age and income groups.

The faster growth in wages for blue-collar workers is somewhat surprising, especially since throughout most recent history, white-collar wage growth was higher. We expect labor markets to continue to tighten in the coming years, which will only apply more wage and price pressures across the economy. There are already signs that faster wage growth is already spilling over to producer prices.

The rise of women relative to men in the labor force—along with the relative increase in female-dominated and generally lower-paying service sector employment—may be one significant reason why wage growth in this economic recovery has not been as fast as expected or what we are used to experiencing. But it’s also a reason why we can think optimistically that the labor market (and our economy’s true capacity) still hasn’t maxed out.

Public and private businesses today face many decisions that do not arise from, and have consequences far beyond, solely financial performance. Rather, these decisions are primarily driven by, and implicate, important social, cultural and political concerns. They include harassment, pay equity and other issues raised by the #MeToo movement.

Policymakers returned home from last month’s spring meetings of the World Bank and IMF with a clear message. The current short-term outlook provides no guarantee for sustained economic growth in the medium-term. Not surprisingly the word “productivity” therefore appears many times in this edition of the IMF’s World Economic Outlook. Productivity growth will be one of the most effective ways to prevent the recent upswing in global growth from slowing down prematurely.

Labor market data very clearly suggest that jobs in warehousing, delivery, and e-commerce, are unlikely to fully replace those lost in brick and mortar retail.