Welcome back to another Spending Watch – our consumer-centered article series – where we keep you updated on the state of the consumer and what to expect next. 

Today we zoom in on one of the core drivers of consumer spending and robustness in the post-pandemic period: excess savings. It holds true for both Europe and the US that the fiscal and monetary bazooka was queued up during the pandemic. In the EU the fiscal bazooka was mostly a transfer union from rich countries to poorer ones with the PEPP being a prime example of that and as opposed to the US we didn’t see the same helicopter money being thrown around.