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In the course of 2021 we have seen that, in the wake of the pandemic, a misalignment has emerged in the real estate sector between a demand that has recovered very quickly and a supply that is more dependent on structural factors and therefore continues to lag behind. As a result of this misalignment, house prices have started an upward trend which may continue to some extent in the coming quarters as a result of higher production costs in the sector and problems with the supply of certain raw materials. Nevertheless, in the medium term, as new supply enters the market and tensions in global supply chains ease, prices should return to a growth rate that is more in line with the trend in household income.

In 2023, Spain’s tourism sector remained on the path of recovery and growth, surpassing initial expectations and breaking records, not only in nominal expenditure but also in real terms. In 2024, we expect the positive trend for Spain’s tourism sector to continue and its GDP to increase by 2.5%, with the sector outpacing the overall economy and remaining one of the drivers of the Spanish economy.

Population growth has been one of the main factors that has driven the demand for housing in Spain in recent quarters and has played a fundamental role in sustaining home prices in a context of tightening financing conditions. In this article, we analyse the relationship between population growth and the evolution of home prices in the last two years. Population flows have been concentrated in large urban areas and tourist areas, and have caused a wide dispersion in the growth of home prices between the most buoyant areas of the country and those suffering depopulation.

The distribution of consumer spending over the month, a key question for understanding consumer behaviour, has not yet been studied in the depth it deserves because of the scarcity of high-frequency public data. How do consumers allocate their spending week by week? How much more do they spend at the beginning of the month, which is when most people are paid? Do we consume with the same intensity regardless of our age or our income? Thanks to the use of CaixaBank’s internal data on a daily frequence, we are able to carefully analyse the time patterns of consumption and answer these questions.

Made in Spain, Made in the USA and even Made in China labels make less and less sense in today’s world. Since firms decided to fragment their production processes and move them to other countries, the label Made in the World probably better represents the nature of most of the manufactured goods we consume. In this article we review the past, present and future of global value chains at a time when pandemic-induced restrictions on travel and supply disruptions have brought them back into the spotlight.

Luxury tourism has established itself as a strategic segment for the Spanish tourism sector, both for its high contribution to expenditure and for its potential to increase the value added of the sector. According to payment data analysed by CaixaBank Research, although this segment only represents 3% of international cards, it accounts for 20% of in-person spending by foreign tourists. The analysis also highlights the rise of urban luxury tourism, driven largely by Madrid’s dynamism as a high-end destination, despite luxury tourism still maintaining a strong coastal orientation. The United Kingdom, France and Germany are the main sources of tourists travelling to Spain, both in the luxury and conventional segments, although other economies with a very high GDP per capita, great inequality or a combination of both stand out.

Between 2020 and 2022, around 420,000 new households were created in Spain. During the same period, the number of new homes started barely reached 300,000, the lowest level since 1990 except during the financial crisis that began in 2008. This supply of housing, which is insufficient in relation to the demographic situation, is more pronounced in those municipalities whose populations are growing the most, such as large cities, the islands and the Mediterranean coastline. According to population projections by the National Statistics Institute, about 217,000 new households will be created per year over the next five years (2023-2027), representing significant demographic pressure and with important implications for the housing market.

The resilience of the Spanish economy in recent years has been underpinned by both quantitative (strong job creation) and qualitative (more stable employment) improvements in the labour market. Firstly, there has been a fall in temporary employment, a factor that has traditionally fuelled job insecurity and social inequalities and held back investment in human capital, constraining the economy's growth potential; secondly, in some key sectors of our economy this has been accompanied by an improvement in productivity. However, the incipient improvement in overall productivity that has been observed is not widespread across all sectors.

The rapid rise in house prices in many European countries during the pandemic has raised concerns about the possibility of a price correction in the coming quarters. Should we be worried in the case of Spain? Given the current macroeconomic scenario, we argue that there is no need for concern. This conclusion is largely due to the good financial health of households as a whole and to reasonable housing affordability in aggregate terms. Neither do we expect an upward spiral in prices: prices may pick up while the economy moves back to its pre-pandemic levels but, in the medium term, we expect house prices to grow in line with household income. We have confirmed this using CaixaBank Research’s new risk model (HaR).

The food price rally has begun to slow, but the cumulative increase since 2019 is significant and expenditure on food now represents a higher percentage of Spanish households’ consumption. The decline in agricultural and energy commodity prices in the international markets relative to their peaks reached in 2022 should help to contain agricultural production costs and thus to further ease the inflationary pressures on food over the coming quarters.