In what is shaping up to be a quiet week for U.S. economic data, there is likely to be more news involving the global economy.
Monday
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, is scheduled to speak on “Global Challenges, Global Solutions” at George Washington University. The speech aims to lay out some key ideas and agenda items for the world’s top economic policymakers, who are to gather in Washington later in the month for spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.
Tuesday
The Institute for Supply Management plans to release its index of activity at the nation’s service businesses.
Forecasters expect that the non-manufacturing sector continued growing at a solid pace in March, though slightly slower than in February.
The index is forecast to have fallen to 59.5 points from 59.7.
The Federal Reserve, meanwhile, is set to release minutes
of its March 15 policy meeting, where it affirmed its policy of ultra-low interest rates and
purchases of Treasury bonds through June.
The minutes should shed light on how Fed leaders are viewing the various risks to the economy: The meeting came just after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and amid turmoil in Libya.
It should also give further hints of how Fed officials are analyzing the run-up in fuel prices over recent months.
Thursday
The governing council of the European Central Bank gathers for its monthly policy meeting, and analysts expect the panel to raise interest rates for the first time since 2008.
The bank, which controls monetary policy for the euro currency, has maintained its target interest rate at
1 percent since May 2009 to try to boost growth, but some expect it to raise the rate to 1.25 percent, responding to higher commodity prices.
The anticipated action could show the bank’s resolve as an inflation fighter — but at the potential cost of slowing a fragile European economy and making the continent’s debt troubles more onerous.
The Federal Reserve is slated to release consumer credit data, which forecasts suggest will show that the outstanding debt held by American consumers rose by $4.8 billion in February.
— Neil Irwin
Neil’s
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How much income inequality and weakness in the job market are caused by underlying forces the labor market? Michael Spence and Sandile Hlatshwayo explore the question in a working paper. And Alex Tabarrok of the Marginal Revolution blog on what the old show “WKRP in Cincinnati” says about the economics of copyright law.
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