AGEFI Luxembourg - septembre 2025

Septembre 2025 11 AGEFI Luxembourg Economie Par Christopher DEMBIK, Senior Investment StrategyAdviser PictetAssetManagement U ne nouvelle étude duNBER*, publiée par PascalMichaillat, développe un algorithme de détectionde récession en temps réel qui estime à 71%la probabilité que l’économie américaine soit déjà en récessiondepuismai 2025. Saméthode repose sur une étude approfondie et large dumarché de l’emploi por- tant sur les 15 récessions américaines de 1929 à 2021. Sa conclusion est sans équivoque : « les conditions du marché du travail caractéristiques d’une récession ne se pro- filent pas à l’horizon ; elles sont déjà là » . Cela donne évidemment du grain à moudre à tous ceux qui considèrent qu’une récession est déjà là ou im- minente et qui s’appuient à la fois sur l’impact potentiellement négatif des taxes douanières et la séquence de mauvaises statistiques américaines du mois d’août. Cette étude est une contribution intéressante au débat actuel sur l’état de l’économie améri- caine. Toutefois, on aurait tort de tirer des conclusions hâtives : - Laméthodologieutilisée incite à laprudence. Elle repose sur l’analyse de milliers de don- nées sur une très longue pé- riode alors que les structures de l’économie et du marché de l’emploi ont substantielle- ment évolué entre 1929 et au- jourd’hui. - La récente révisiondes créations d’emplois en mai et en juin inter- pelle.Mais rienn’indiquequ’une récession soit là ou imminente. Les créations d’emplois dans les sec- teurs cycliques sont loind’être à des niveaux préoc- cupants, tout comme celles hors fonction publique et santé (un segment par nature résilient). - L’économie américaine continue de bien se porter. Les investissements des entreprises, le secteurma- nufacturier, le commerce international et même l’immobilier sont en meilleure forme aujourd’hui qu’il y a un an. Nous sommes plutôt en phase de stabilisation. Dernier point essentiel : la structure de l’écono- mie américaine a profondément changé ces der- nières décennies, réduisant la nature et la fréquence des récessions. Historiquement, les ré- cessions étaient la conséquence du cycle des af- faires (processus de destruction créatrice pour reprendre une terminologie qui plait aux admira- teurs de Schumpeter). C’est désormais moins le cas à cause de trois facteurs qui se combinent : la tertiarisation, la faible tolérance des pouvoirs pu- blics à la récession, et le stimulus budgétaire et/ou monétaire permanent qui est symptomatique d’un régime de domination budgétaire. Lorsque les actifs tangibles, par exemple l’acier ou le pétrole, jouent un rôle crucial dans le bon fonc- tionnement de l’économie, les récessions cycliques sont fréquentes. C’est différent lorsque l’économie est dépendante des actifs intangibles et que les ser- vices et les dépenses publiques représentent res- pectivement 80% et 45% de l’économie. L’un des succès des États-Unis, c’est d’être le pays le plus avancé dans ce processus. Ils ont réussi à ex- ternaliser une grande partie des structures de pro- duction qui ont une forte cyclicité afin de se concentrer sur les actifs intangibles qui sont, aupas- sage, créateurs de plus de richesse. D’où l’hégémo- nie des géants de la tech américains dans l’IA, par exemple. Cela ne veut pas dire que les Américains soient immunisés contre la récession, évidemment. Mais si elle devait survenir, elle serait sûrement liée à une crise du crédit, comme ce fut le cas à la findes années 2000. Pour l’instant, rien de préoccupant à ce niveau. La Réserve Fédérale veille au grain. * National Bureau of Economic Research Récession américaine : mythe ou réalité ? O ver the recent years, quite a fewcom- mentators havementionedLeoTol- sty’s famous War andPeace . Incidentally, another book thatmight be in- teresting to readduring these times isVassily Grossman’s Life and Fate …. ConcerningTol- stoy, it seems tome that some commentators forgot themainunderlying idea of Tolstoy’s analysis, namely the fact that personalities whose importance has been inflatedby ana- lysts (inhis caseNapoleon), played aminor role in the historical processes. The real underlying thread put forward in his piece were generational conflicts rooted indiffering values and beliefs. As humans’ phenotypes are shaped throughtheinteractionbetweentheirrespectivegeno- types and respective environments, distinctive envi- ronmentsandshocksmightinfluencetheirviewsand beliefs. The major idea is that major ongoing geopo- liticalprocessesareanchoredmuchdeeperthanwhat the focus onpersonality issuesmight suggest. Economists, recently, have also become interested in the formation of beliefs in the sense of views of the world and future expectations (Giuliano, P. and Spilimbergo, A. (2025)). Standard economic models assume stable preferences and beliefs that are up- datedbasedon available information.More recently developed experience-based models, however, give more weight to recently experienced events, espe- cially during lifetime, rather than to data far in the past. This implies that the beliefs and thus the “val- ues” that a given generation holds are influenced by the age at which major events occur (or not), given that for such a generation the main share of lifetime experienceisinfluencedbytherespectiveevent(eco- nomic shock). For instance, the subprime crisis of 2008 probably had a stronger psychological impact on the younger generations (currently around 40) than on older generations (currently around 80). In that respect, major shocks such asWars, Terrorist at- tacks or Covid-type events are likely to have asym- metric effects across generations. Those shocks are likely to impact investment and entrepreneurial ac- tivity aswell as expectations formations. The important take-away is that major geopolitical tensions impact generational beliefs and preferences and thus their “values” as theyare a combinationbe- tweenboth.Theviewsofpoliticaldecisionmakerswill thus depend on their age, maturity and the geopolit- ical events faced during lifetime. Incidentally, this mightexplainwhyEUdecisionmakers,somehaving lived in a relatively wealthy and stable environment without anymajor geopolitical shocks, especially the younger generation, well-fed with post-modernist theories, face so many problems to adapt to the cur- rent geopolitical changes under way. Talking about “values” all day longwhile promoting and selecting people that think the same way does not really help promotediverseviewsofanalysts.Thismightalsoex- plain why some current EU leaders face difficulties top understand leaders of other countries, be they competitors or adversaries (China, India, Russia…) and the list is getting larger. According to the sociological theory of generations, major views and values are nurtured during early adulthoodand late adolescence. Recent research in- dicates that individuals that have spent their young adulthood under communism still have attitudes towardsfinancialmarkets that aredifferent. Getting back to political preferences, the literature consis- tently finds that major economic shocks shift politi- cal preferences to the right. Those results seemvalid across timespans, countries, political regimes but de- pendcruciallyon the ageof the individualwhen the shock was experienced. Studies also indicate that within Europe, economic crises impact trust in in- stitutions and EUpoliticians, especially in southern Europe (Algan et al. (2017)). More generally, there exists a negative correlation between negative shocks and trust in institutions. Risk preferences as well as return expectations also seem influenced by past experiences. Whydomajoreconomicshockstypicallyleadtoshifts towardsthepoliticalright?Bonomietal.(2021)aswell asGrossmanandHelpman(2021)identify IdentityPol- itics as one of the reasons. Negative shocks reinforce group identities and the demand for nationalist eco- nomic policies. This is consistent with the recently emergingideathataltruismtowards othergroups (also calleduniversalisminthetechnicalliterature)isa lux- urygood (Enkeet al. (2022). Those that promoteopen- nessandallsortsofminoritiesarealsooftenthosethat holdwell-off and secure jobs, often actually financed by the taxpayers’ money, including politicians. If the economictheoriesofbeliefformationareright,arising tensions will influence the political landscape with a shift to the political right, which iswhatwe observe. WhatabouttheconsequencesofWar?Thisisofcourse arelevantquestionincurrenttimes.Inthatrespect,let me here quote an interesting sentence by Stephen Kotkin,afamousUSHistorian,“youcanlosethewar butwinthepeace”alternatively“youcanwinthewar andlosethepeace”*.Intermsofanalysisthissentence seems quite interesting and wise. The thought is in- teresting and timely. Now let us checkwhat the eco- nomic literature is teachingus. Fiedler and Rohles (2021) provide a broad review of wars on preferences and beliefs. In regions of war, people tend to invest more in social capital than in physical assets and human capital. This implies of course longer-term implications in terms of coopera- tiveequilibria.Warsalsoleadtothepromotionofcul- tural beliefs that favour in-group behaviour and co-ethnic pro-sociality. Concerning the EU, Gehring (2022) finds that the tensions inUkraine in2014, hav- ingbeenfeltasastrongerexternalthreatbyEuropean populations, led to a substantial increase in the trust inEuropeanInstitutionsandthefeelingofaEuropean identity. This effect seems much stronger for people andgenerations that have livedunder Soviet control. Fontanaetal.(2023)findthatItalianregionsthatwere underheavyNazi occupationexhibitedstronger and longer support for communist parties, an effect that lasteduntil the endof the 1980. Overall,thoseresultsareimportanttograspforpublic decisionmakers. According to those results, the cur- rent geopolitical tensions are likely to lead to amajor upheaval of the political landscape, especiallywithin the EU. First, it should lead to stronger feelings of group identity of westerners towards other cultures, whichpotentiallyexplains the shift to the rightwhich can be analysed as cultural reaction rather than an aversion to immigration as such. Second, the emer- gent newworld order will imply a shift away from luxury good (Enke et al. (2022) policies and the exces- sivepromotionofpost-modernistideology(Pluckrose andLindsay (2021)). Third, paradoxically for some, it will lead to a strengthening of the NATO influence on the EU, es- peciallyintheEasternEuropeanflankandlessimpor- tance of the role played by the EU for European populations, unless the EU is reformed. Quite a few EUcountrieswanttokeeptheirculturalidentitiesbut preferNATOsecuritytotop-downlecturingfromthe EU.Somemightnotlikethosestatements,butitseems that all those processes arewell underway. Those are underlying processes independent of any personalityissues,butanewgenerationofpoliticians can accompany those processes without falling into extremes, on any side of the political spectrum. The moderate position exists and is known as Social Democracy reconcilingfreemarketsandfreedom,cor- rection of inequalities and respect of cultural identity rather than fake socialism implemented through over- promotionofallkindsofminoritiesand IdentityPolitics whilethegapbetweenrichandpoorisgettingbigger. Democracies, unfortunately, can also drift towards “extractive institutions” (Johnson (2025)) when ar- rangementsconcentratepoliticalpowerandeconomic opportunities in the hands of a few elites, whatever the ideology that is used. Michel VERLAINE ICN Business School Michel.verlaine@icn-artem.com References -Algan,Y.,Guriev,S.,Papaioannou,E.,&Passari,E.(2017).“The EuropeanTrust Crisis and the Rise of Populism.” Brookings Pa- personEconomicActivity,48(2),309–400. -Bonomi,G.,Gennaioli,N.andTabellini,G. (2021).“Identity,Be- liefs and Political Conflict.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 136(4),2371–2411. - Enke, B., Polborn, M., and Wu, A. (2022). “Values as Luxury GoodsandPoliticalBehavior.”NBERWorkingPaper30001. -Fontana,N.,Nannicini,T.,&Tabellini,G.(2023).HistoricalRoots ofPolitica lExtremism:EffectsofNaziOccupationinItaly.Journal ofComparativeEconomics,51,723–743. -Fiedler,C.,&Rohles,C.(2021).SocialCohesionafterArmedCon- flict.GermanDevelopmentInstitute,DiscussionPaper7/2021. - Gehring, Kai. 2022. “Can External Threats Foster a European Union Identity? Evidence from Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine.” *EconomicJournal*,Volume132,Issue644,pages1489–1516. - Giuliano, P. and Spilimbergo,A. (2025) “Aggregate Shocks and the Formation of Preferences and Beliefs” , Journal of Economic Literature63(2),542-597. -Grossman,GeneM.,andElhananHelpman.2021.“IdentityPol- itics and Trade Policy.” Review of Economic Studies, 8(3), pp. 1101–1126. - Johnson, S. (2025) “Nobel Lecture: The Institutional Origins of SharedProsperity”, AmericanEconomicReview ,115(6):1749-1786. -Pluckrose,H.andLindsay,J.(2021) CynicalTheories-HowActivist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity- And WhyThisHarmsEverybody, Swift * How to Lose the War, Win the Peace – Stephen Kotkin | Endgame#174availableonyoutube. On the Economics of War and Peace