Should the government use economic stimulus to aid the country during times of recession?

China Creates A Global Economic Shock

The first China shock came after a series of liberalizing reforms in China in the 1990s and its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. For U.S. consumers, this brought considerable benefits. One 2019 paper found that consumer prices in the U.S. for goods fell 2% for every extra percentage point of market share grabbed by Chinese imports, with the biggest benefits felt by people on low and middle incomes. But the China shock also piled pressure on domestic manufacturers. In 2016, Autor and other economists estimated that the U.S. lost more than two million jobs between 1999 and 2011 as a result of Chinese imports, as makers of furniture, toys and clothes buckled under the competition and workers in hollowed-out communities struggled to find new roles. A sequel of sorts appears to be under way. China’s economy expanded 5.2% last year, a subdued rate by its standards, and is expected to slow further as a drawn-out real-estate crunch crushes investment and consumers rein in spending. Capital Economics, a consulting firm, thinks annual growth will slow to around 2% by 2030. Beijing is seeking to engineer an economic turnaround by plowing money into factories, especially for semiconductors, aerospace, cars and renewable-energy equipment, and selling the resulting surplus abroad. Protectionism might shift some of the deflationary impact to other parts of the world, as Chinese exporters look for new markets in poorer countries. Those economies could see their own fledgling industries shrivel in the teeth of Chinese competition, much as the U.S. did in an earlier era.

Commercial Real Estate Crisis Threatens Global Economy

Recent global events have sparked fears of a commercial real estate crisis in Europe, mirroring situations in Japan and the US. Notably, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG faces significant downturns due to the real estate market's weakness.The past week has witnessed significant downturns in the stock values of several banks worldwide, particularly those with substantial exposure to commercial property loans. Mirroring unsettling developments in Japan and the United States, Europe is now facing the prospect of an emerging commercial real estate crisis. Some senior officials at the European Central Bank say Germany will inevitably be a special focus as they examine CRE risks at banks across the region.“There is more pain to come in real estate valuations, so what does that mean for lenders and does that mean there is the potential for a crisis?”German banks have the most commercial real estate loans in the European Union, along with their French peers, but they have classified a relatively small portion of those loans as non-performing. Recently, however, that share has been rising while it declined in several other countries.“This is definitely not just a US problem,” said Valeriya Dinger, a professor of economics at Germany’s University of Osnabrueck. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a wave of loan loss provisions for German banks on their domestic commercial real estate exposure,” she said, even if there’s no systemic risk.German property values are particularly vulnerable to higher borrowing costs because capitalization rates — or the potential return on a real estate investment — were pushed lower there than in other markets during the cheap money era. That reflected in part the fact that yields on German government bonds, a benchmark for investors, were negative at the time.

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