The Latest Business Cycle

Check out the accompanying pdf and chart collection. Executive Summary: The Census Bureau’s monthly “Manufacturing and Trade Inventories and Sales” report is chock-full of valuable information that often goes unnoticed by the media and economists alike. Last week’s release, with data through April, shows inventories starting to rise relative to sales, especially among retailers. That implies good and bad news—good for constraining inflation, bad for economic growth, increasing the risk of a goods-led recession. … And: With global inflation surging, are the major global central banks tightening with Fed-like fervor? Not exactly. Melissa examines the unique issues in Europe, Japan, and China that are tempering their monetary policy responses.