Growth slowdown in the euro zone: This time, it is not finance

A significant slowdown in growth is now clearly under way in the euro zone. We want to stress that it does not result from an imbalance caused by finance: There is no bubble in financial or real estate asset prices in the euro zone; There is no household or corporate overindebtedness driving up defaults; There is no banking crisis leading to a fall in credit; There is no fiscal solvency crisis in the euro-zone countries. The growth slowdown in the euro zone is therefore a mechanism purely of the real economy (it is an old-style cycle): hiring difficulties among companies; saturation of needs for housing, capital goods and durable goods; slowdown in global trade.