Economic Bulletin

What is Economic Bulletin?

The Economic Bulletin is the flagship analytical publication of the European Central Bank (ECB), the central bank for the euro area, based in Frankfurt, Germany. It covers the euro area economy and the global conditions that affect it, drawing on Eurostat data and market data.

It also uses staff projections and two ECB surveys: the Survey of Professional Forecasters and the Bank Lending Survey, with no sample of its own. It is not a statistic, a rate decision or a forecast. It documents the analysis behind Governing Council decisions that were announced about two weeks earlier.

When is it released and what happens each release?

The Bulletin appears 8 times per year, about two weeks after each Governing Council monetary policy meeting. It carries no fixed clock time and is published from Frankfurt, with timing shifted at the end of the year. Each issue contains an overview of developments since the previous meeting, Boxes as short analyses, Articles as longer research and a statistical annex.

4 issues a year also add staff macroeconomic projections for growth and inflation. Policy statements and press conferences come at the meeting about two weeks before the Bulletin. The monetary policy account comes about 4 weeks after the meeting. Each issue stays final and is never revised.

What moves Economic Bulletin?

Read its 6 recurring sections as the drivers of the assessment.

• Overview: headline assessment and the policy decisions for that cycle, setting the narrative for the whole issue.
• External environment: global growth, trade and commodity and oil prices, capturing spillovers to the euro area.
• Economic activity: GDP, consumption, investment and labour market data, capturing real-economy momentum.
• Prices and costs: HICP headline and core inflation excluding food and energy, wages and expectations, judged against the inflation target.
• Money and credit: M3 as broad money, bank lending and funding costs, capturing monetary transmission to the economy.
• Fiscal developments: deficits, debt and draft budgetary plans, capturing the fiscal backdrop.

A past issue shows how to read components: euro area inflation hit a record 4.9%, the highest since the start of the monetary union. Energy accounted for more than half of the headline rate.

Staff projections then saw hump-shaped inflation at 2.6%, rising to 3.2%, then 1.8% and 1.8%, with core inflation at 1.4%, 1.9%, 1.7% and 1.8%. Pandemic buying ended while standard buying slowed in steps of 40 billion euro, then 30 billion euro, then 20 billion euro a month. The lesson: a 4.9% record driven by one component did not force tightening, since slower buying came with continued accommodation for the 2% target.

How is Economic Bulletin calculated?

1. Analytical publication: the Bulletin is prose analysis, not a computed index, so it produces no value and no threshold.
2. No formula or weights: the publisher states no formula, weights or seasonal adjustment for the Bulletin itself.
3. Underlying data: HICP, GDP and market series keep their own Eurostat methods, which belong to those releases, not this Bulletin.
4. Timing illustration: a policy meeting is documented by the issue released about two weeks later, while projection rounds add forecasts in the same cycle.

Key point: the Bulletin never announces new rates. It appears about two weeks after each meeting and explains decisions already published. The earlier Monthly Bulletin no longer appears.