Economics Correspondent
Just before Christmas, the UN Human Development Index 2020 ranked Ireland joint second in the World across a range of indicators which measure quality of life, just below Norway.
There was a minor kerfuffle on Twitter. Hurrah, shouted some. Bah, shouted others.
Quality of life means many things to many people. Some aspects are measurable; some not.
One aspect is prosperity. And normally, income is used to measure that. Economists can make a stab at guessing what that is. But not without a lot of disagreements and even more caveats.
The International Comparison Programme is a data series going back to 1950, managed by the World Bank. It adjusts measures of income across economies around the globe to allow for comparisons.
USD/SEK: Krona hovers near 2018 highs after strong Swedish retail sales
December 22, 2020
The USD/SEK pair dropped to the lowest level since April 2018 after strong Swedish retail sales data.
In November, the country s sales rose by an annualised rate of 5.7%.
In the same month, consumer confidence rose to 92.3 from 88.6.
The Swedish krona is hovering near its highest level against the dollar since April 2018 after the country released relatively strong economic data. The USD/SEK is trading at 8.2550 while the EUR/SEK has dropped to 10.1095.
USD/SEK under pressure
Sweden releases strong data
In a report released earlier today, the Swedish statistics office said that retail sales rose by 0.8% in November leading to an annualised increase of 5.7%. The annual increase was slightly better than October’s increase of 4.2%.