Monetarypolicyandthereturnofinflation,
questionsandcharts*
Ignazio Visco
Governor of the Bank of Italy
Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
Frankfurt, Germany, 1 March 2023
After at least three decades of moderate consumer price changes in advanced countries,
inflation has returned to levels that are severely affecting the lives of all citizens (fig. 1). In this
note, I will discuss five key issues that often take centre stage in the current macroeconomic
debate. The first concerns the nature of the current inflation and its different sources in the
two main advanced economies. The second is the claim that, in the euro area, monetary
policy reacted too late to the acceleration in consumer prices. The third, closely related to
this, focuses on whether or not the ECB made policy mistakes or forecasting errors and,
if so, why these occurred. The fourth considers the supposed ineffectiveness of monetary
policy and the channels through which it operates. The last issue tackles monetary policy
prospects and asks whether, in the fight against inflation, the ECB should prefer to run the
risk of doing too much rather than the risk of doing too little.
1. What is the nature of current inflation? What are the differences between the
UnitedStatesandtheeuroarea?
Even though inflation is currently affecting many economies in an apparently similar
manner, its underlying sources are different across countries, especially so if we compare
the United States, where demand factors have been crucial in triggering the acceleration
of prices, with the euro area, which has mostly been hit by a supply shock.
First, while fiscal policies were expansionary everywhere during the acute phase of the
Covid-19 pandemic, in the United States they were especially bold: the public debt-to-GDP
ratio rose by 25 percentage points in 2020-21, to over 130 per cent. In the euro area,
instead, the increase was limited to 15 percentage points, to slightly less than 100 per
cent, despite a much deeper decline of nominal GDP in 2020 and a slower recovery in
2021. The exceptional support provided to US households is particularly evident when
comparing the dynamics of GDP and disposable income (fig. 2): in 2020, just as the
former recorded its sharpest collapse in real terms in the entire post-World War II period
(-3.4 per cent), real disposable personal income grew by over 6 per cent, the largest
rise since the mid-1980s. In the euro area, instead, household real disposable income
declined, even though by a much smaller extent than GDP (-0.05 versus -6.3 per cent).
Second, the different dynamics of household disposable income across the two economies
translated into different effects on demand. In the United States, GDP returned to its
pre-crisis trend at the end of 2021, but aggregate data hid a large heterogeneity between
sectors: while demand in the services sector was restrained by pandemic-related factors,
the goods sector increasingly showed signs of overheating (fig. 3). In the spring of 2021,
for example, personal consumption expenditure in the durable goods sector was already
more than 30 per cent higher than its pre-crisis level. The fast recovery in US demand, in
a phase in which global supply was still constrained due to the waves of the pandemic,
caused bottlenecks in the international value chains, which drove up the prices of
intermediate goods everywhere. In the euro area, instead, in the third quarter of last year
(the latest for which we can estimate the decomposition of consumption) demand for
both goods and services was still below the pre-pandemic trends.
Third, the labour market has been much tighter in the United States than in the euro
area. The US unemployment rate still stands at just 3.4 per cent, a value last seen only
in the late 1960s and about half the level of the euro area (6.6 per cent). The difference
between the number of vacancies in the US non-farm sector and the number of people
who are unemployed is, today, over 5 million, i.e. there are many more jobs available
than there are people looking for them, while in the euro area the opposite is true, with
the number of unemployed exceeding the number of job vacancies by about 6 million.
Unsurprisingly, the annual change of US nominal wages (measured by the employment
cost index) surpassed 4 per cent as early as in the third quarter of 2021, approached 6 per
cent in 2022, and today still stands above 5 per cent, a level that is difficult to reconcile
with an inflation target of 2 per cent (fig. 4). In the euro area, on the other hand, in spite
of current requests for sizeable wage increases in some countries where labour markets
are particularly tight, wage growth has so far remained, on average, moderate, at around
3 per cent, and there are no clear signs of a wage-price spiral as a whole.
Fourth, the energy shock had a very different role on the two sides of the Atlantic. Since
the second half of 2020, oil prices rose gradually in both the United States and the euro
area. The price of the natural gas delivered in the United States increased much more
markedly, rising from around $10 per megawatt hour before the pandemic to a peak of
over $30 last summer, before sliding back below $10 (fig. 5). However, it was the price
of the natural gas delivered in Europe that recorded the most extraordinary dynamics,
dwarfing even the 1973 oil price increase (which itself had increased four-fold):
from slightly above €10 per megawatt hour in early 2020, it rocketed to €180 before
the war, soaring to a peak of €350 last summer and then falling sharply, hovering
around €50 in the last few days. This extreme volatility of gas prices was also the result
of a "bullwhip effect", which is the response of demand to uncertain supply, consisting
of ordering more, ordering earlier and replenishing gas stocks.
As a consequence of these dynamics, US consumer price inflation increased from below
2 per cent in February 2021 to a peak of over 9 per cent last June (fig. 6), declining up to
6.4 per cent in January 2023. Core inflation (i.e. net of energy and food products) took the
lion's share of the rise, with a peak of 6.6 per cent last September and still in January at 5.6
per cent. In the euro area, on the other hand, headline inflation reached a record high of
10.6 per cent last October, from less than 1 per cent in February 2021, followed by a return
to 8.6 per cent last January. Core inflation progressively rose, up to 5.3 per cent in January,
reflecting the usual lags in the pass-through of energy prices. The upsurge in the latter was
responsible for the largest share of the acceleration in consumer prices: considering the
combination of both their direct and indirect effects, in 2022 about 60 per cent of headline
inflation was attributable to higher energy prices. If we also add the effects of the rise in food
prices, another consequence of the conflict in Ukraine, this share increases to 70 per cent.
2. DidtheECBrespondtoolatetotheaccelerationinconsumerprices?Ismonetary
policy"behindthecurve"intheeuroarea?
The Governing Council of the ECB began the process of monetary "normalisation" at
the end of 2021, when it judged that the progress in economic recovery and towards
the medium-term inflation target was sufficient to allow for the start of a step-by-step
reduction in the pace of asset purchases. Why did we not start earlier? And why did we
not begin to raise official rates before July 2022?
To answer these questions, it is useful to recall what the inflation situation was in June
2021, when we were about to conclude the ECB strategy review. While in the United
States headline inflation was already above 5 per cent and core inflation was 4.5 per cent,
pushed by the demand factors discussed above, in the euro area, despite already higher
gas prices, headline inflation was still below 2 per cent and core inflation was less than
1 per cent. High inflation, therefore, seemed to be a phenomenon mostly concentrated
in the United States. The main problem the Governing Council was tackling in that period
was still how to increase the dynamics of consumer prices durably and sustain a rapid
re-anchoring of inflation expectations from excessively low levels.
The situation began changing in September 2021, when gas prices went from the
already high level of €50 per megawatt hour to about €100 (a "supply shock"). At that
time, however, futures quotes predicted gas prices would remain at around that level
during the winter season and then decline very sharply, to well below €50 by June 2022.
The prediction of declining gas prices implicit in futures contracts remained more or
less unchanged until late December 2021. With such a steep fall in gas prices in sight,
inflation could not stay at high levels for long and, in fact, was projected to return
swiftly to 2 per cent and below.
As it turned out, instead of declining by more than 50 per cent as expected at the end
of September, gas prices increased by almost 100 per cent, averaging an unprecedented
level of €200 during the summer of 2022. The Russian invasion of Ukraine had transformed
a temporary shock into a persistent one, warranting an acceleration of the monetary
normalisation.
In the early part of 2022, in fact, the process gained speed. However, we managed to
avoid the potentially dangerous cliff-effects of too sharp a swing in our stance, not
least in view of the major uncertainty caused by the conflict in Ukraine. The end of our
purchases was anticipated to the 1st of July and, shortly after, we started raising our key
official interest rates by a significant size, with the aim of frontloading the exit from their
highly accommodative, indeed still negative, levels.
3. DidtheECBmakepolicymistakesorforecastingerrors?And,ifso,why?
When discussing the high level of headline inflation reached in the euro area, some
commentators have paid less attention to the sudden occurrence of the energy shock,
its size and its persistence, pointing the finger instead at the delays of the central bank
in initiating its monetary tightening. Critics citing this hypothetical mistake have also
highlighted the large errors in the inflation projections made by the ECB/Eurosystem
staff in 2022 (fig. 7).
The forecast errors in predicting consumer price changes over the last year were indeed
sizeable and much larger than those observed in the past. Some have even argued
that these large errors call into question the very credibility of the ECB, although other
international institutions and private forecasters have made similarly large mistakes.
While the observed size of the errors may understandably cast doubt on the reliability
of the models used for the projections, our analysis for Italy (with similar results for the
analysis conducted by the ECB on the forecasts for the euro area as a whole) indicates
that the effects of energy prices - the most important exogenous variables in the
forecasting model, whose changes are usually inferred from the market price of futures
contracts - explain, directly and indirectly (i.e. via their effects on production costs),
70 per cent of the overall error made in forecasting inflation in 2022. This share rises
to 80 per cent when the effects of food prices, the other volatile component of the
consumer price index, are also taken into account.
These results suggest that, although all models should be (and are) subject to continuous
checks and improvements, the functioning of the economy has not changed dramatically
over the last year. They do draw our attention, however, to the quality of the forecasts
used as inputs.
Undoubtedly, the effects of global supply bottlenecks were underestimated, although
demand in the euro area did not contribute greatly to them in any case. The key problem,
however, was the generalised underestimation of the recent geopolitical tensions.
The sharp drop in gas supplies from Russia observed since early 2021 was in fact
(probably mistakenly) attributed at first to the effects of a particularly cold winter in
Russia and subsequently to the political pressure from the Russian government to
accelerate the opening of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The new shock caused by
the Russian invasion of Ukraine a year ago has, instead, dramatically changed this
picture, triggering a sharp rise in volatility and pushing both current and expected gas
prices to extremely high levels, fuelling inflation.
It may indeed be argued that an earlier rise in interest rates might have reduced the
market uncertainty (and might have more effectively managed the initial rise in inflation
expectations). On one hand, this claim is debatable, since it neglects to consider that
the consequences of the uncertainty generated by the Russian invasion also needed to
be properly evaluated and addressed. On the other, even if we suppose it to be true,
I doubt that a few months' delay in the actual implementation of the decision to halt
asset purchases and start raising official interest rates would have had substantial
consequences on the evolution of consumer prices in the euro area, which, as I have
mentioned, mostly reflect the costs of energy and food.
4. IstheECB'smonetarypolicyineffective?
As is widely agreed, monetary policy affects the real economy, and inflation, with "long
and variable" lags. While monetary actions and communications tend to affect financial
markets' interest rates and asset prices almost immediately, their transmission to the
financing conditions of households and businesses and, subsequently, to consumer
prices, tends to be much more gradual as economic agents revise their decisions to
consume and to invest slowly and, in some cases, infrequently. The initial conditions
of the economy - including the level of debt, the degree of economic uncertainty, and
many other domestic and global factors - also have important consequences on the
distribution over time of the effects of a change in the monetary stance on inflation and
growth.
Empirical evidence for the euro area shows that, on average, a change in key rates exerts
its largest impact on GDP growth after about a year and a half and its maximum effect on
inflation after one to two years. Therefore, most of the economic impact of the rate hikes
that have been implemented so far is yet to be felt, suggesting that a degree of prudence
is warranted, as their full results are about to be seen.
However, the initial effects of our policy measures are already discernible. Following
our latest monetary policy decision, the overall increase of official rates since July has
reached 300 basis points and has been fully and smoothly transmitted to market interest
rates. Since the start of the reduction of monetary accommodation at the beginning of
2022, one-year risk-free rates (measured by overnight index swaps) have picked up from
negative levels to 3.6 per cent, while ten-year rates have increased from barely positive
values to 3.0 per cent. In real terms, using the inflation-linked swap (ILS) as a deflator,
they currently stand at about 0.7 and 0.5 per cent respectively, from around -4 and -2 per
cent at the end of 2021 (fig. 8). The fact that long-term interest rates started increasing
well before our first key rate hike should not come as a surprise. It is indeed proof of
the credibility of our actions and our commitment to guaranteeing price stability, and it
supports my claim as to the possibly limited effects of starting the rise in interest rates a
few months earlier, notwithstanding the uncertainties linked to the war.
Further signs of the effectiveness of the Governing Council's actions are found in the
dynamics of inflation expectations, whose levels are an important anchor for wage
dynamics and actual inflation. In the euro area, short-term inflation expectations derived
from financial market prices are falling sharply. ILS rates indicate that the expected
inflation rate twelve months ahead now stands at 2.9 per cent, down from a peak of
almost 9 per cent recorded in late August 2022 (fig. 9). The initial signs of a decline in
inflation expectations are also broadly confirmed by surveys of firms and households.
At the same time, longer-term expectations, net of risk premia, remain at levels consistent
with our 2 per cent price stability target, and tail-risks of excessive inflation are gradually
dissipating (fig. 10). The anchoring of inflation expectations is also supported by the
results of the January ECB surveys of analysts.
A quantification of the structural drivers of euro area and US inflation expectations, as
measured by ILSs, obtained by breaking down their daily fluctuations into domestic and
global shocks (fig. 11), confirms the different role of supply and demand factors on the
two sides of the Atlantic and provides a measure of the effectiveness of the monetary
tightening. The results of this analysis - which focuses on the effects of changes in policy,
demand and supply with respect to historical regularities - show that, since the start
of the war in Ukraine, the inflation rate predicted over a five-year horizon increased
mostly in response to supply shocks in the euro area; the much smaller contribution of
demand shocks rose progressively over the course of 2022, reflecting improved business
cycle conditions. Results also document strong spillover effects of US monetary policy
on euro area inflation expectations since the second half of 2022 and confirm the initial
signs that the ECB's monetary policy tightening is having the desired soothing effects
on the economy. In the United States, on the other hand, inflation expectations had
been steadily sustained by domestic demand until the end of last October, and have
since been reined in by contractionary monetary policy effects. The credibility that central
banks have gained over time has not been lost and indeed is currently paying off.
5. ShouldtheECBpreferrunningtheriskofdoingtoomuchcomparedtotheriskof
doingtoolittle?
There is no question that the tightening of the euro area monetary stance must continue
to ensure that a temporary increase in inflation caused by a supply shock does not
become a more persistent phenomenon sustained by demand factors. This said, in early
February the Governing Council of the ECB assessed that the risks to the inflation outlook
have become more balanced, while reiterating that uncertainty remains very high. In this
context it has raised its key rates by 50 basis points and has announced the intention to
raise them by a further 50 basis points in March. In any case, the pace of any further rate
hike will continue to be decided on the basis of incoming data and their impact on the
inflation outlook.
It will remain essential to continue balancing the risk of a too-gradual recalibration
(doing too little), which could cause inflation to become entrenched in expectations and
in wage-setting processes, with that of an excessive tightening (doing too much), which
would result in significant repercussions for economic activity, financial stability and,
ultimately, medium-term price developments. In line with our symmetrical price stability
objective, I believe that equal weight should be given to both risks.
On the one hand, doing too little would come at a cost for the economy if this led to
the need for a stronger and more prolonged restriction of monetary policy. On the other
hand, however, the costs linked to the opposite risk may be relevant if "doing too much"
were to determine an undershooting of the target and possibly even lead to serious
debt-deflation phenomena, triggering nonlinear perilous amplifications. In the face of
both of these risks, the central bank decisions should continue to be characterised by
wisdom and balance and be guided by careful quantitative evaluations of incoming data.
When it comes to reducing inflation, a recession is not always inevitable. Communicating
a strong commitment to bringing inflation down to target in a speedy manner is
fundamental, but doing so by minimising the costs for the real economy is not any less
important.
A cautious approach is also advisable due to a series of other considerations. The first
is related to the high level of economic uncertainty and the Brainard principle, which
states that when the central bank is uncertain about the effects of its actions, it should
move conservatively. An exception to this principle is the case of uncertainty around the
persistence of inflation: when persistence is high, in fact, a strong monetary reaction may
be required to avoid high inflation becoming entrenched in agents' mind-sets. While this
possibility should be carefully monitored, data on market- and survey-based inflation
expectations - including their recent decline at short horizons and their decreasing profile -
and the marked deceleration of prices on a 3-month annualised basis (fig. 12), may call
into question the persistence of inflation at high levels in the euro area, reinforcing the
arguments in favour of gradual monetary normalisation.
The second concerns the "long and variable lags" of the monetary transmission process
that I have already mentioned. Credit dynamics provide signals that are especially
relevant in this respect. On a 3-month (annualised) basis, the growth of loans to firms
in the euro area was negative in January (-1.3 per cent) from an almost double-digit
expansion in October (9.8 per cent). Although this deceleration is the natural (and desired)
consequence of monetary normalisation, both its size and speed require caution on the
magnitude and time distribution of future interest rate hikes.
The potential risks to financial stability also require a good dose of caution. The
unprecedented coordinated rises in official rates around the world may create spillover
effects that are difficult to quantify but may not be negligible. Financial instability risks are
particularly relevant in the Economic and Monetary Union, whose incomplete architecture
- especially its decentralised fiscal policy and the delays in completing the banking and
capital markets unions - exposes it to a possible fragmentation of financial markets.
Finally, in the current uncertain environment, models and forecasts should necessarily
be taken cum grano salis, in particular when determining the "terminal" level of key
interest rates. Quantitative assessments are still useful, but their insights have to be
assessed together with the information that will gradually become available on inflation
expectations and on the evolution of wages and profits.
* * *
The monetary policy tightening started by the ECB in December 2021 has been crucial
to respond to the risks stemming from high and rising inflation. Even before exerting
its effects on aggregate demand, it has operated by contributing to containing
inflation expectations, avoiding an increase to excessively high levels. This anchoring
of expectations has therefore laid the foundations for preventing the occurrence of
wage-price spirals.
Low and stable inflation expectations, however, do not completely eliminate the risk
of "second-order effects". To this end, labour and business in all euro-area countries
must continue to behave responsibly. It has to be fully understood that the energy
shock is like a tax on the euro area economy, which unfortunately cannot be returned to
sender and cannot be circumvented through a fruitless race between wages and prices
nor through an excessive and permanent increase in public debt. Wage negotiations,
therefore, cannot go back in time to when they were purely backward-looking. Making
up for the loss of purchasing power must, rather, rely on achieving sustained productivity
growth, although targeted and temporary fiscal measures to alleviate the burden on
more severely hit households and firms should obviously not be ruled out.
Today, gas prices in Europe are returning to more moderate levels and their volatility
is declining, setting the stage for the convergence of inflation, over the medium term,
to the ECB's target of 2 per cent. In this context, the pricing strategies of businesses
will play a central role. In particular, we will have to closely monitor whether, after the
pass-through of the higher energy costs observed in 2022, firms will allow final prices to
reflect the most recent declines, which would imply a less intense tightening of financial
conditions. This will be a key step to achieve a durable reduction of underlying inflation.
In this phase, monetary policy should not be left to work alone. The contribution of all
policies, including perhaps some new versions of old-fashioned income policy recipes,
could help to favour a more rapid convergence of inflation to the ECB target. The return
to price stability will greatly benefit from fiscal policies and negotiations between workers
and firms operating in the same direction as monetary policy.
FIGURES
Figure 1
The return of inflation
(monthly data; annual percentage changes)
30 30
US UK EZ IT
20 20
10 10
0 0
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
1960
Source: Eurostat, Istat, UK Office for National Statistics and US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Note: EZ denotes the euro area (changing composition after 1999 and weighted average of the 11 countries partecipating
to the start of Third Stage of the Economic and Monetary Union prior to that date).
Figure 2
Disposable income and GDP
(annual data; percentage changes)
United States euro area
6 disposable 6 6 6
income GDP
4 4 4 4
2 2
2 2
0 0
0 0
-2 disposable -2
-2 -2
income
GDP
-4 -4
-4 -4
-6 -6
-6 -6
2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
Source: Eurostat and US Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Figure 3
Demand in the goods and services sectors
(monthly and quarterly data; indices: Jan. 2020 / 2019 Q4 = 100)
Goods sector Services sector
130 130 110 110
United States United States
120 120
100 100
110 110
90 90
100 100
90 90
80 80
2019 2020 2021 2019 2020 2021
105 105 105 105
euro area
euro area
100 100
100 100
95 95
90 90
95 95
85 85
80 80
90 90
2019 2020 2021 2019 2020 2021
Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis and estimates based on Eurostat data.
Note: dashed lines show pre-pandemic trends.
Figure 4
Nominal wage growth
(quarterly data; annual percentage changes)
6 6
5 United States 5
4 4
euro area
3 3
2 2
1 1
0 0
Figure 5
Natural gas prices
(daily data)
350 350
300 300
250 250
Europe (euro)
200 200
150 150
100 100
50 50
0 0
United States (dollars)
2020 2021 2022
Source: Refinitiv.
Note: Title Transfer Facility (TTF) quotations for European gas and Henry Hub for US gas.
Figure 6
Headline and core inflation
(monthly data; annual percentage changes)
12 12 12 12
United States euro area
10 10 10 10
8 8 8 8
headline
6 6 6 headline 6
4 4 4 4
core
2 2 2 2
core
0 0 0 0
-2 -2 -2 -2
2019 2020 2021 2022 2019 2020 2021 2022
Source: Eurostat and US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Figure 7
ECB/Eurosystem projections errors for euro area headline inflation
(percentage points)
1 quarter ahead projection errors 4 quarters ahead projection errors
8 8 8 8
6 6 6 6
4 4 4 4
2 2 2 2
0 0 0 0
-2 -2 -2 -2
-4 -4 -4 -4
2003 2007 2011 2015 2019 2023 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019 2023
Source: Bank of Italy and ECB.
Note: dashed lines denote an interval around zero of plus/minus two standard deviations of projection errors realized in
2003-2020; latest observation: 2022 Q4.
Figure 8
Real interest rates in the euro area
(per cent)
Term structure, spot rates Term structure, 1-year forward rates
2 2 2 2
1 1
1 1
0 0
0 0
-1 -1
-1 -1
-2 -2
-2 -2
-3 -3
-3 -3
-4 -4
-4 -4
end 2021
end 2021
-5 mid 2022 -5
-5 mid 2022 -5
27 February 2023
27 February 2023
-6 -6
-6 -6
spot 2y fwd 4y fwd 6y fwd 8y fwd
1 year 3 year 5 year 7 year 9 year
1y fwd 3y fwd 5y fwd 7y fwd 9y fwd
2 year 4 year 6 year 8 year 10 years
Source: based on Bloomberg and Refinitiv data.
Note: nominal OIS interest rates deflated by the corresponding inflation-linked swap rates.
Figure 9
Market-based inflation expectations in the euro area
(daily data; per cent)
10 10
1 year
8 8
6 6
4 4
2 2
10 year
0 0
-2 -2
2020 2021 2022
Source: Bloomberg.
Note: 1-year and 10-year inflation-linked swap rates.
Figure 10
Inflation tail risks in the euro area
(daily data; per cent)
80 80
∏>3
60 60
∏<1
40 40
∏<0
∏>4
20 20
0 0
2020 2021 2022
Source: based on Bloomberg data.
Note: probabilities inferred from inflation options; π<0 (π<1) is the probability of inflation being smaller than 0 (1) on
average in the next 5 years; π>3 (π>4) is the probability of inflation being larger than 3 (4) on average in the next 5 years;
50-days moving averages.
Figure 11
Drivers of changes in inflation expectations
(daily; percentage changes)
euro area United States
1.6 1.6
1.4 1.4
1.21 1.21
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
0.20 0.20
-0.2 -0.2
-0.4 -0.4
-0.6 -0.6
-0.8-1 -0.8-1
-1.2 -1.2
-1.4 -1.4
-1.6 -1.6
-1.8 -1.8
03/01/22 31/01/22 28/02/22 28/03/22 26/04/22 24/05/22 21/06/22 20/07/22 17/08/22 14/09/22 12/10/22 10/11/22 08/12/22 05/01/23 03/02/23 03/01/22 31/01/22 28/02/22 28/03/22 26/04/22 24/05/22 21/06/22 20/07/22 17/08/22 14/09/22 12/10/22 10/11/22 08/12/22 05/01/23 03/02/23
Source: C. Hoynck and L. Rossi (2023), "The Drivers of Market-Based Inflation Expectations in the Euro Area and in
the US", mimeo, Bank of Italy, Rome.
Note: 5-year inflation swap rates; changes with respect to 3 January 2022.
Figure 12
Inflation
(monthly data; 3-month annualised percentage changes)
20 20
US UK EZ
15 15
10 10
5 5
0 0
-5 -5
2021 2022
Source: Eurostat, UK Office for National Statistics and US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Note: EZ denotes the euro area.