Imelda is a senior economist in the Banking Strategy Department. With a Master's degree in Financial Markets from the Catholic Institute of Business Administration (ICADE), before joining CaixaBank she worked as director of financial systems at Bankia Research. Her main areas of research include the Spanish banking system, especially tracking business volumes, as well as the competitive and regulatory environment of the financial sector.
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The restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus and caution due to the prevailing uncertainty led to a large increase in savings by Spanish households in 2020. Specifically, we estimate that cumulative savings from the pandemic reached €46.6 billion, 3.7% of 2019’s GDP. This sharp increase in savings has diminished as we have been able to return to our old habits, leading to a rapid recovery in consumption; a trend that will most likely continue in the coming quarters.
The automotive industry is an important driver of growth and prosperity worldwide due to its contribution (i) in social terms, by facilitating people’s mobility in an efficient, safe and affordable way, and (ii) in economic terms, as a driver of innovation, a generator of good quality jobs and a pillar of international trade. In the case of Spain, it has become a mainstay of our industry and a benchmark on a global scale, thanks to a large production capacity and high productivity resulting from a skilled workforce and a great degree of plant automation. The economic crisis caused by the pandemic has taken its toll on a sector that is in the midst of a technological transformation towards electrification. A necessary transition that will be strongly supported by the Next Generation EU (NGEU) funds.
The war in Ukraine has fuelled fears of shortages of certain essential inputs for the agrifood sector, as Russia and Ukraine are major players in the global supply of cereals, oils and fertilisers, among other commodities. It is therefore not surprising that, following the outbreak of the conflict, the prices of agricultural commodities rose sharply on international markets. This price hike has been passed on to the production costs of Spain’s agricultural sector, a net importer of fertilisers and animal feed, and is also having an impact on the food prices paid by end consumers. Nevertheless, the most recent developments (agreements to release part of the grain retained in the Black Sea and good harvests in other producing countries) have helped to stabilise agricultural prices and reduce the risk of a global food crisis.
Climate change and the struggle to prevent it pose enormous challenges for agrifood production in Spain. In turn, improving the sustainability and resilience of the sector will be key to achieving the environmental targets set out in the European Green Deal. Agri-environmental indicators show that, despite some progress in recent years, the sector needs to tackle significant aspects, such as reducing the use of chemical pesticides, fertilisers and antimicrobials in agriculture, as well as improving animal health and welfare, increasing efficiency in the use of energy and water resources, promoting food consumption that is more sustainable and healthier and reducing food loss and waste, fostering a circular economy. The new CAP, with eco-schemes as its key measure, and the Next Generation EU funds will support the sector’s green and digital transition.
After the recent boom in tourism, of 2018 growth of international tourism slowed down in all regions of the world, with the exception of the Middle East where it increased substantially.
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.
The intensification of inflationary pressures, a phenomenon aggravated by the war in Ukraine, has led to a sharp shift in the direction of monetary policy. Mass bond purchases by the central banks are being left behind, while official rates are already being ratcheted up. In the financial markets, this change has been reflected in a sharp rise in sovereign debt yields – a trend which, due to their role as a benchmark, has also affected other financial assets.
We analyse individual CaixaBank customers’ direct debit electricity bill payments in order to understand how Spanish households’ electricity bills have evolved in 2022.
2022 will be remembered not only for the intensification and persistence of inflationary pressures but also for the sudden shift in the direction of monetary policy, bringing to an end more than a decade of low rates and ultra-dovish policies.
We analyse the recent trend in consumption in Spain based on data from the CaixaBank Research Real-Time Economics portal, which we have expanded with information on direct debit payments, as well as more detail on each individual sector and on the evolution of e-commerce.
How has spending on water, electricity and gas bills evolved over the past five years? We analyse anonymised information on direct debit payments made from CaixaBank accounts, including the key component of utilities, to understand how much effort Spanish households have had to make in paying their energy bills.
We analyse individuals’ electricity bill direct debit payments made from CaixaBank accounts to determine how the increase in prices affected the finances of Spanish households.
The citrus fruit sector is one of the most important in the Spanish agrifood system and a leading player in international export markets. Its production structure is typically atomised, making it more difficult to modernise the farms, and the sector has some important challenges to tackle. In particular, strong competition from non-EU countries at a time when production costs are rising sharply, accentuated by a prolonged drought and the war in Ukraine. In any case, the figures suggest that Spain’s citrus production continues to be the most competitive in the world, thanks to its hard-won reputation as a product of the highest quality produced under the strictest health standards.
The severe restrictions imposed to contain the spread of COVID-19 have resulted in an unprecedented drop in consumption and thereby a record rise in household savings. A large part of these new savings has been involuntary, caused by the impossibility of maintaining the usual level of consumption. According to our estimates, the lifting of restrictions that started in May will encourage part of these involuntary savings to be spent on consumption, this being one of the keys to a rapid recovery of consumption in 2021.
2020 has now been left behind; a year that will be remembered in the tourism industry as the toughest in recent history. In 2021, the fight against the pandemic continues and restrictions on movement and trade are still preventing normal economic activity, hitting tourism-dependent businesses particularly hard. However, the roll-out of the vaccines will provide a turning point once immunity is achieved among the population most at risk. Our projections point to a strong recovery in the sector during the second half of the year, resulting in tourism GDP growing by 80% annually, once again becoming one of the driving forces for the Spanish economy.
The tourism industry is no stranger to inflationary shock. Tourism-related prices are growing strongly and, specifically, the hotel sector is posting price rises well above the historical average. As is often the case, there is no single reason for this inflation in tourism but rather a compendium of changes in both supply and demand that have resulted in tourists having to pay much more than before the pandemic. In this article we look at the factors that lie behind this episode.
The current crisis is triggering changes in many aspects of our lives, a large number of them related to our residential preferences. For example, working from home can transform how and where we live. The pandemic has also boosted the digitisation of the real estate sector and could speed up certain changes in other areas such as house modernisation, supporting the transition to a more sustainable economy.
The sectors most closely related to tourism are digitalising faster than the average for the Spanish economy but there is still a long way to go, especially when compared to other tourism industries in Europe. In the next few years, it will be crucial for Spain’s tourism industry to be able to remedy this situation by means of a clear commitment to digitalisation, which will help to improve its long-term growth capacity. The European NGEU funds are an opportunity to revitalise investment in the digitalisation of tourism businesses after two very tough years for the industry.
Spain’s manufacturing sector has overcome a 2022 that was hit hard by the energy crisis and supply problems regarding some raw materials, preventing manufacturers from getting back to their pre-pandemic levels. In 2023, although the economic situation is still significantly uncertain, the outlook is somewhat more favourable than a few months ago: having weathered the more adverse scenarios observed during the winter, the economy continues to show positive signs thanks to the stabilisation of energy markets and the resilience of Spain’s labour market and household consumption.