Indeed, France's household-savings rate could fall this year to 14%, from 17% in 2002.Mr Sarkozy wants to sustain this by boosting purchasing power.
Lower inflation in America, he reckons, will boost purchasing power by 2% at an annualised rate over the current and coming quarters.There is a potential pitfall, however.
That, together with the export boom, has brought a steady appreciation of the real (see chart).The strong currency has helped to boost purchasing power, especially that of poorer Brazilians for whom lower food prices are a particular boon (as is a government anti-poverty programme that reaches 11m families).
Even though President Emmanuel Macron and his government decided to cancel the increase in fuel prices which triggered the protests back in November 2018, announced measures to boost purchasing power and launched the so-called "national debate", the protests continue every week.
The government's response to the yellow vests protests, which included measures to boost purchasing power and a national debate (of which 68% think that it will not yield useful policies for the country), served to alleviate some of the immediate concerns but did not – and could not – address the fundamental problems driving the yellow vests.
Lower inflation has boosted consumers' purchasing power, enabling them to spend more on discretionary items, such as holidays.
Mr Valé reckons this ought to happen in about 2015.A strong real and lower interest rates have boosted the purchasing power of the middle class.
A study cited by the authors suggests that, by bringing greater product variety, trade has boosted consumers' purchasing power by 2.8% of GDP, or $300 billion a year.
Lower-than-expected retail sales for Harley-Davidson in Q1 went against previous expectations of solid growth, considering how the economic conditions in the U.S. improved, and low fuel prices boosted customer purchasing power, which meant that customers could afford to pay a little extra for the Harleys.
