Speculation in oil and gas prices in times of geopolitical risks

Recent volatility in oil and gas prices has rekindled interest in understanding how much fundamental factors – global supply and demand – and non-fundamental factors contribute to price movements. This box constructs indices of speculation based on futures positions. Overall, speculation has only a limited role in both oil and gas price dynamics, although the degree of speculation is somewhat higher in European gas markets than in US gas markets.

The euro as a global currency: a payments perspective

The global role of a currency can be measured in several ways, including by looking at its use in payments. After March 2023 the share of the euro in total Swift payment messages (i.e. payment instructions sent via the Swift network) appeared to drop. This coincided with a major infrastructure change in Europe – namely, the launch of the Eurosystem’s next-generation large-value payment system for the euro, T2, which replaced TARGET2 – and a move to a new Swift message standard.

An update on the accuracy of recent Eurosystem/ECB staff projections for short-term inflation

This box looks at errors in Eurosystem and ECB staff inflation projections over the post-pandemic period, updating and extending earlier analysis published in 2022 and 2023. Projection errors have come down considerably since the end of 2022 and now stand close to pre-pandemic levels. The low predictability of energy commodity prices (which surprised markets on the downside in 2023) explains a significant share of the recent errors in HICP inflation projections.

Friend-shoring: what Biden wants to achieve by trading with allies rather than rivals

The tendency to move production and trade away from countries considered to be political rivals or national security risks and towards allies, so-called “friend-shoring”, is a hot topic among economists. The term popped up during the COVID pandemic, a time of significant disruption to supply chains, and gained further traction when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Pages

Subscribe to Front page feed