Spain, the OECD country where companies have contributed the most to rising inflation

2023-06-07 13:46:03

ParisRising inflation is moderating in both the euro zone and the United States but remains “stubbornly high”, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has warned. In the economic forecast report published this Wednesday, the organization slightly improves the global economic growth forecast for this year (2.7%), despite the difficulty of the international context, but warns that there is still ” a long way” to return to the pre-pandemic situation. After a very difficult 2022 due to the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine, the OECD is a little more optimistic and believes that 2023 will mark “a turning point”.

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Despite the slowdown in its rise, inflation remains one of the main dangers. In the report, the OECD analyzes how taxes, labor costs and company profits have contributed to inflation in major economies. According to these data, extracted from the GDP deflator, Spain is the state – among the large OECD economies – where companies have contributed the most to the rise in inflation during 2022: approximately three quarters of the increase in domestic inflation – that is, leaving out the inflation generated by rising energy prices – is due to business profits, according to the report. However, the body does not give more details and admits that it is difficult to know whether it is a consequence of the lack of competition or “of specific factors that have contributed to a strong growth of profits in some sectors or in a subset of companies “.

The contribution of corporate profits to inflation has also increased in many other countries in Europe, including France, Italy and the UK, but nowhere as much as in Spain. In France, for example, two-thirds is due to the increase in labor costs and only one-third to company margins.