Inflation, Omicron, Supply Chain, Turkish Lira and Energy Prices were some of the most discussed trends among the top economics influencers on Twitter during Q4 2021, reveals the Social Media Analytics (SMA) Platform of GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Smitarani Tripathy, Social Media Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Influencers opine that the global economic recovery has been shadowed by the emergence of the new COVID-19 variant ‘Omicron’, which has the potential to push inflation higher and disturb the supply chain.”

Omicron

Top economists on GlobalData’s SMA are of the opinion that Omicron is creating substantial havoc by lowering business confidence and collapsing global economic growth, including the US economy as the risks are tilted to the downside.

• Gregory Daco, Chief US Economist, Managing Director at Oxford Economics:

“The deteriorating health outlook with #Omicron is leading to renewed #Covid fatigue & fear.This risks pushing the US economy toward a contraction in Q1 2022. Our tracker still points to GDP growth around 2% annualized but risks are tilted to the downside.”

• Kaushik Basu, Professor of Economics and C. Marks Professor

“I propose the term “breakaway recession” for what’s happening in many nations.—The bottom half of society is in recession, while total GDP grows. Brazil, Philippines, India, Peru are heading to breakaway recession. US also has risk; depends on its handling of the Omicron wave.”

Inflation

Eurozone inflation hit record high on the back of higher energy and food prices. Some of the economists have also opined that inflation will not head lower despite raising interest rates and taper by the US government while some influencers expect Omicron and expiring fiscal relief will render the inflation dynamics even messier.

• Isaah Mhlanga, Chief Economist at Alexander Forbes Investments:

“They don’t work because the root of increasing inflation is supply disruptions and money supply. Fix the root cause, improve production and reduce money supply. Cash transfers and zero interest rates were bound to lead to inflation especially when chasing few goods.”

Energy Prices

Top economists on GlobalData’s SMA discussed how the rising prices of oil, gas, and electricity have accelerated the inflation rate to a higher level in many countries. Some economists believe that the surging energy prices may not ease in the near-term.

Turkish Lira

Turkish Lira depreciated the most against the US dollar and the inflation rate reached the highest level since 2002. Influencers discussed that the weak Lira can easily trigger to go well beyond damaging inflation and the economic growth of Turkey.

• Mohamed A. El-Erian, President at Queens’​ College, Cambridge

“Yet more of the same this morning in #Turkey as the #currency weakens even more. The risks posed by this for the Turkish #economy should not be ignored. It can easily trigger a broad range of durable self-feeding vicious cycles that go well beyond damaging #inflation and #growth.”

Global Supply Chain

Besides COVID-19 restrictions, harsh climate and geo-political issues played a catalyst role for the global supply chain crisis in 2021. Influencers expect the supply chain crisis likely to speed up deglobalization.

Unemployment, Recession, Climate Change, Vaccination Policy, and Monetary Policy were the other most mentioned trends in Q4 2021.