ATB's Quarterly Alberta Economic Outlook
ATB leverages its understanding of Alberta's economy to produce a quarterly economic forecast for the province.
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SubscribeATB leverages its understanding of Alberta's economy to produce a quarterly economic forecast for the province.
Chart of the Week: The dark cloud of uncertainty
We know that tariffs hurt the economy through the trade channel by reducing the demand for Canadian goods.
What’s missing (and harder to model) is the impact of uncertainty. The ‘on and off’ again nature of Trump threats puts a chill on investment. Also thrown into the mix is domestic policy uncertainty. In Canada, federal policy is in flux, with a prorogued parliament, a liberal leadership race and a pending election.
In short, not a lot of clarity on what policy looks like on both sides of the borders.
Uncertainty sounds like a nebulous concept, and nearly impossible to measure. That didn’t stop economists Scott Baker, Nicholas Bloom, and Stephen Davis from trying. They created an index based on media references. While not perfect, their index is correlated with other proxies like stock market volatility. It also foreshadows investment and employment declines.
In Canada, that index spiked to its highest level since COVID. So yes, uncertainty is holding back already sluggish levels of business investment, something the Bank of Canada noted this week.
Economic Insights Focused on Alberta's Economy
Retail sales, the unemployment rate, population growth, inflation, international trade—these are just a few of the economic trends the team makes sense of in ATB’s daily insights.
Alberta’s exports to countries other than the U.S. in 2024
Alberta’s exports to the U.S. in 2024
Alberta’s oil production in 2024
A review of the key economic highlights of the week impacting Alberta.
Tariff reality bites
Cutting through the uncertainty
The weekend before inauguration
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