MACROECONOMIC CLIMATE – FROM THE WORLD ECONOMY TO THE MOLDOVAN ECONOMY

The macroeconomic climate has recently demonstrated strong resilience to the unprecedented changes in trade policy in the United States, the world's largest economy. In July 2025, the world economy expanded at the strongest rate since December 2024, according to the PMI (Purchasing Managers’ Index) Composite (manufacturing and services) indicator, an evolution driven by the dynamics of new orders and production. However, one can notice the persistence of the gaps among the largest economies in the world, in terms of annual growth rates of the economic activity, with the remarkable performance of China (the second largest economy in the world). On the other hand, the investment climate has deteriorated in the United States due to the high level of uncertainty and the real financing costs. In Europe, the appreciation of the euro and the increase of trade tariffs by the United States are counterbalanced by the measures launched by the European Commission and by the German Administration since the beginning of the year, with the expectations component of the business climate heading to the highest level since February 2022 (IFO Institute, 2025). The macroeconomic climate has also recently improved in the economy of Moldova, as reflected by the increase in industrial production for the fourth month in a row in June. In this paper, we analyse the recent macroeconomic development, from the world economy to the economy of Moldova, by focusing on the gap between industrial production and its structural component. We implement standard econometric tools (the Hodrick-Prescott filter) and use the databases of the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (2025) and of the National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova (2025) to distinguish between the structural and cyclical components of the volume of the industrial production (from world economy to Moldova), one of the most used indicators as a proxy for the economic activity. At the same time, we estimate the correlation between Moldova (on the one hand) and the largest economies in the world (on the other hand) in terms of the gap between industrial production and its structural component during 2012-2020 (pre-pandemic period), and 2021-2025 (post-pandemic period). The results of our analysis express overall better prospects for the European economy and for the economy of Moldova in the medium run, as the programs under implementation by the European Commission (including Competitiveness Compass and ReArm EU), in conjunction with the expansionary monetary policy, are going to support the investments. Furthermore, there can be noticed an increase in the correlation between the industry of Moldova and the industry of Euroland during the post-pandemic period (2021-2025), an evolution also influenced by the consequences of the geopolitical tensions, including the acceleration of the process of the EU accession.