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Global trade in March was much weaker than in previous months, although China was able to halt its decline and import growth in particular was strong. This emerges from the latest update of the Kiel Trade Indicator (month-on-month, price and seasonally adjusted). In the US, both exports and imports were clearly negative in March. For Europe, the indicator shows slightly negative results. For Russia, it indicates a significant increase in imports.

The leading economic research institutes have raised their forecast for growth in German economic output in the current year to 0.3 percent. In the fall, they were still expecting a decline of 0.4 percent. “The economic setback in the winter half-year 2022/2023 is likely to have been less severe than feared in the fall. The main reason for this is a smaller loss of purchasing power as a result of a significant drop in energy prices,” says Timo Wollmershäuser, Head of Forecasts at ifo. Nevertheless, the rate of inflation will fall only slowly from 6.9 percent last year to 6.0 percent this year.

Japan and Scandinavian countries in particular have made significant further pledges of support to Ukraine at the beginning of 2023. This is the result of the latest data analysis of the Ukraine Support Tracker, which now also covers the entire first twelve months since the beginning of the Russian attack. Overall, new commitments at the beginning of the year have been comparatively small.

China has emerged as a lender of last resort for developing countries that are having difficulty repaying their Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) debts. According to a new study by researchers at AidData, the World Bank, the Harvard Kennedy School, and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Beijing has dramatically expanded emergency rescue lending to sovereign borrowers in financial distress—or outright default.

Global trade in goods seems anemic in March (month-to-month, price- and seasonally adjusted), according to the latest update of the Kiel Trade Indicator.

The outlook for the German economy has brightened slightly. According to the Kiel Institute spring forecast, gross domestic product is expected to grow by 0.5 percent this year and 1.4 percent next year. The rates are revised upwards by 0.2 (2023) and 0.1 percentage points (2024) compared to the winter forecast. Inflation pressure is stubborn and affects the entire goods spectrum. As a result of higher prices, real wage costs are lower than they have been for a long time, and public sector revenues are bubbling up. Inflation is expected not to return to around 2 percent before 2024.

The negative consequences of war experiences on employment biographies can be severe and often only become apparent long after the war's end, towards the end of working life. This is one key result of a new empirical study on war-injured soldiers, prisoners of war (POWs), and displaced persons from World War 2, which has now been published as a Kiel Working Paper. "One can also draw lessons from our research findings for the war in Ukraine, for example, about the expected disadvantages of war veterans in their working lives or the integration of displaced persons in the labor market," says labour economist and Kiel Institute Fellow Sebastian Braun.

The EU Commission and the British government have negotiated a bold and imaginative new framework for navigating Northern Ireland's special status.

Africa’s female entrepreneurs could outperform their male counterparts, with improved access to formal funding. They already benefit enormously from improved funding through supplier credits. While funding typically refers to formal financial sources, such as bank credit, researchers from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the University of Ghana have revealed how this alternative source of credit, directly provided by suppliers, is particularly useful in narrowing the productivity gap.

After a strong start to the year, global trade looks to move sideways in February. This emerges from the latest update of the Kiel Trade Indicator (month-on-month, price- and seasonally-adjusted). A slight setback is emerging for Western Europe, while the U.S. and China are expected to trade more goods in February than in the previous month. The weak phase in the global exchange of goods at the end of last year thus appears to have been overcome, although forwarders are reducing transport via container ship.

Professor Moritz Schularick has accepted the appointment as Professor of Economics at Kiel University (CAU) and will become the new President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. He is expected to take over as director of the Institute on June 1, 2023. Schularick is currently a professor of economics at Bonn University and Sciences Po in Paris.

World trade in goods slows down in February following strong growth in the previous months. The same applies to the foreign trade of major economies.

Since the beginning of the war, the foreign support for Ukraine has followed a pattern: the US leads, Europe follows. Military support has gained weight over time. This is the result of the latest data analysis of the Ukraine Support Tracker, which now covers about twelve months from January 2022 to January 2023. In total, support to Ukraine is usually only a small fraction of what governments spend to cushion the fallout of the crisis in their own countries.

According to a recent analysis by the Kiel Institute, the German economy's dependence on imports from China is significantly lower than suggested by classic trade statistics. Overall, only a very small proportion of German production depends directly or indirectly on Chinese inputs. By far the largest share comes from Germany's own inputs. However, China dominates the world market and German supplies of specific raw materials and products, particularly in the field of electronics, and could not be replaced as a supplier in the short term.

Global trade is picking up speed at the beginning of the year and could be on the verge of a prolonged upswing. This is boosting European and German foreign trade in particular. In its latest update, the Kiel Trade Indicator shows clearly positive values for the exchange of goods in January compared with the previous month of December (price and seasonally adjusted). There are noticeably fewer containers on the world's oceans than at the peak of about a year ago, probably also because companies have switched to alternatives to the sea route. As a result, the volume of goods in congestion is also falling noticeably to pre-crisis levels.

Christoph Trebesch, professor at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, has won a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC) for a major project on the impact of geopolitics on international finance. The ERC Grant is one of Europe’s most prestigious and highly endowed scientific awards. The grant will further support the new research focus on geopolitics at the Kiel Institute.

In cooperation of the Christian-Albrechts-University (CAU) and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Wilfried Rickels takes up a professorship to research economic aspects of atmospheric CO2 removal (Economics of Negative Emissions Technologies). In this capacity, he will also remain director of the Global Commons and Climate Policy Research Center at the Kiel Institute.

According to the latest data update of the Kiel Trade Indicator, global trade in January 2023 can continue its positive trend from the previous month and is up 1 percent compared to December 2022 (price and seasonally adjusted).