Thursday, February 6, 2014
Dr. Volcker, I presume?
Austerity Sucks: Another Drag on the Post-Recession Economy Is Public-Sector Wages
The aftermath of the Great Recession has led to outright wage declines for the vast majority of American workers in recent years, resulting in a full decade of essentially stagnant wages. Though you might expect public-sector wages to have weathered the recession and its aftermath better than private-sector wages, the opposite appears true: While the decline in real public-sector wages started later, it was steeper and ultimately more damaging. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Cost Index, public-sector wages have fallen by about 1.3 percent in inflation-adjusted terms since 2007, where private-sector wages have been essentially flat (an increase of 0.3 percent). Unlike in previous recoveries, state and local government austerity has been a major drag on job growth and the broader economy. The number of public-sector jobs fell by almost 3 percent in the three years following the recession, while the number of private-sector jobs grew (albeit anemically). The fact that public-sector wages have lagged behind those in the private-sector exacerbates government’s drag on the economy.Read rest here.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Are emerging markets going to collapse? Why is Dr. Doom wrong
The series of devaluations in the currencies of a few developing countries (I prefer the term to the one in the title, which became popular in the 1990s, when Neoliberal policies required selling bonds in international financial markets, and, hence, emerging markets sounded more marketable than underdeveloped country) has led to a lot of speculation about the collapse of the boom in the periphery. The graph below shows that depreciation has been between moderate to severe, depending on the country (source by The Economist).
The Argentine peso and the Turkish Lira lead the pack, by far. Nouriel Roubini, the so-called Dr. Doom, has suggested that the problems have a common cause, based political problems, and loose fiscal policy leading to external deficits. According to Roubini (here):
The fiscal situation is also not pressing, and at any rate is only relevant to the extent that it affects the level of activity and imports. And as noted by Roubini, these countries are either not growing fast (like Brazil, which has primary surpluses) or decelerating (like India, where nominal deficits as a share of GDP have also decreased). Also, inflation is certainly NOT high in the majority of these countries (again Brazil and India do have single digit inflation levels,* even if the inflation rate is above the target, and that prompted central banks in both countries to hike interest rates).+
The expectations of tightening of US monetary policy, and the possible effects that this might have on developing countries has also been exaggerated. Again, according to Roubini:
However, it is hard to foresee a strong recovery in the US, and a steep, or even a mild, increase in interest rates by the Fed, now under Janet Yellen's command. That obviously does not mean that capital flight might not take place in some countries, and that a few of them would actually face external crises. Yet, it seems unlikely that the situation in the center would completely reverse and lead to a generalized collapse of the peripheral countries. In fact, I would argue that a bigger risk would be a severe collapse in Europe, leading to a flight to safety (i.e. US dollar denominated bonds), even with very low rates in the US, and then a new round of external crises. That's why regulation of capital flows is needed, as demanded by Kevin Gallagher (see here) and not austerity for the periphery, as Roubini wants.
* Also, there is no evidence that inflation around 6 or 7% is any worse than inflation at 4 or 5% in terms of growth or unemployment.
+ There are countries in which the story is more problematic. Argentina, discussed here and here, is certainly one, but interestingly enough it would be a case where the external accounts are actually not that bad.
"Many emerging markets are in real trouble. The list includes India, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey, and South Africa – dubbed the “Fragile Five,” because all have twin fiscal and current-account deficits, falling growth rates, above-target inflation, and political uncertainty from upcoming legislative and/or presidential elections this year. But five other significant countries – Argentina, Venezuela, Ukraine, Hungary, and Thailand – are also vulnerable. Political and/or electoral risk can be found in all of them, loose fiscal policy in many of them, and rising external imbalances and sovereign risk in some of them."In all fairness the fragility of some of the countries is exaggerated, and the reasons are simply wrong. Yes it is true that current account deficits are in normal circumstances a very dangerous stance for developing countries that must borrow in foreign currency; however, the low rates of interest in the center, associated to a slow recovery from the crisis in the US and a terrible collapse in Europe, together with increasing international liquidity, implies that many countries have been able to finance their external imbalances.
The fiscal situation is also not pressing, and at any rate is only relevant to the extent that it affects the level of activity and imports. And as noted by Roubini, these countries are either not growing fast (like Brazil, which has primary surpluses) or decelerating (like India, where nominal deficits as a share of GDP have also decreased). Also, inflation is certainly NOT high in the majority of these countries (again Brazil and India do have single digit inflation levels,* even if the inflation rate is above the target, and that prompted central banks in both countries to hike interest rates).+
The expectations of tightening of US monetary policy, and the possible effects that this might have on developing countries has also been exaggerated. Again, according to Roubini:
"the Fed’s tapering of its long-term asset purchases has begun in earnest, with interest rates set to rise. As a result, the capital that flowed to emerging markets in the years of high liquidity and low yields in advanced economies is now fleeing many countries where easy money caused fiscal, monetary, and credit policies to become too lax."
the Fed’s tapering of its long-term asset purchases has begun in earnest,
with interest rates set to rise. As a result, the capital that flowed
to emerging markets in the years of high liquidity and low yields in
advanced economies is now fleeing many countries where easy money caused
fiscal, monetary, and credit policies to become too lax.
Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/nouriel-roubini-explains-why-many-previously-fast-growing-economies-suddenly-find-themselves-facing-strong-headwinds#FWMzOLXkvghCXMDY.99
"the Fed’s tapering of its long-term asset purchases has begun in earnest, with interest rates set to rise. As a result, the capital that flowed to emerging markets in the years of high liquidity and low yields in advanced economies is now fleeing many countries where easy money caused fiscal, monetary, and credit policies to become too lax."
"the Fed’s tapering of its long-term asset purchases has begun in earnest, with interest rates set to rise. As a result, the capital that flowed to emerging markets in the years of high liquidity and low yields in advanced economies is now fleeing many countries where easy money caused fiscal, monetary, and credit policies to become too lax."
If you agree with Roubini, the solution would be contraction in all these peripheral countries. Devaluation and fiscal adjustment to ease the current account and fiscal imbalances, as the old (and I would argue the new) IMF used to demand.Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/nouriel-roubini-explains-why-many-previously-fast-growing-economies-suddenly-find-themselves-facing-strong-headwinds#FWMzOLXkvghCXMDY.99
"the Fed’s tapering of its long-term asset purchases has begun in earnest, with interest rates set to rise. As a result, the capital that flowed to emerging markets in the years of high liquidity and low yields in advanced economies is now fleeing many countries where easy money caused fiscal, monetary, and credit policies to become too lax."
"the Fed’s tapering of its long-term asset purchases has begun in earnest, with interest rates set to rise. As a result, the capital that flowed to emerging markets in the years of high liquidity and low yields in advanced economies is now fleeing many countries where easy money caused fiscal, monetary, and credit policies to become too lax."
However, it is hard to foresee a strong recovery in the US, and a steep, or even a mild, increase in interest rates by the Fed, now under Janet Yellen's command. That obviously does not mean that capital flight might not take place in some countries, and that a few of them would actually face external crises. Yet, it seems unlikely that the situation in the center would completely reverse and lead to a generalized collapse of the peripheral countries. In fact, I would argue that a bigger risk would be a severe collapse in Europe, leading to a flight to safety (i.e. US dollar denominated bonds), even with very low rates in the US, and then a new round of external crises. That's why regulation of capital flows is needed, as demanded by Kevin Gallagher (see here) and not austerity for the periphery, as Roubini wants.
* Also, there is no evidence that inflation around 6 or 7% is any worse than inflation at 4 or 5% in terms of growth or unemployment.
+ There are countries in which the story is more problematic. Argentina, discussed here and here, is certainly one, but interestingly enough it would be a case where the external accounts are actually not that bad.
Paul Krugman on The Economics of The Welfare State
Social expenditure comprises cash benefits, direct in kind provision of goods and services, and tax breaks with social purposes. Benefits may be targeted at low Income households, the elderly, disabled, sick, unemployed, or young persons. To be considered “social”, programmes have to involve either redistribution of resources across households or compulsory participation.
See rest here.
Dean Baker on The Checkered Past of Ben Bernanke
The retrospectives of Ben Bernanke on his leaving the Fed seem to be coming in overly positive. While there is much that is positive about his tenure as Fed chair, many of these accounts have a rather selective view of history.Read rest here
The part that is clearly wrong is treating Bernanke as a bookish academic who got plucked down in the middle of a financial crisis that was not his making. While Bernanke had a distinguished academic career, he had been in the middle of the action in Washington since 2002. That was when he was selected to be a governor of the Fed. He served as a governor at Greenspan’s side until he went to serve as head of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers in June of 2005. After a brief stint as the chief economist in the Bush administration he returned to take over as chair of the Fed in January of 2006.
It was during the period that Bernanke was at the Fed and his tenure in the Bush administration that the housing bubble grew to such dangerous levels. While Bernanke does not deserve as much blame for this as Greenspan, there were few people better positioned to try to deflate the housing bubble before it posed such a large risk to the economy. During this time Bernanke was dismissive of suggestions that the unprecedented run-up in house prices posed any problem. There is no evidence that he dissented in any important way from Greenspan’s view that the Fed need not be concerned about the housing bubble or the innovations in the financial industry that was supporting it.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Heterodox Microeconomics
Yes, The Cambridge Capital Controversies Do Matter
I rarely (never) post based solely on a quick thought or quote, but this just struck me as too good not to highlight. It’s from a book called ‘Capital as Power’ by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler, which challenges both the neoclassical and Marxian conceptions of capital, and is freely available online. The passage in question pertains to the way neoclassical economics has dealt with the problems highlighted during the well documented Cambridge Capital Controversies:
The first and most common solution has been to gloss the problem over – or, better still, to ignore it altogether. And as Robinson (1971) predicted and Hodgson (1997) confirmed, so far this solution seems to be working. Most economics textbooks, including the endless editions of Samuelson, Inc., continue to ‘measure’ capital as if the Cambridge Controversy had never happened, helping keep the majority of economists – teachers and students – blissfully unaware of the whole debacle.A second, more subtle method has been to argue that the problem of quantifying capital, although serious in principle, has limited practical importance (Ferguson 1969). However, given the excessively unrealistic if not impossible assumptions of neoclassical theory, resting its defence on real-world relevance seems somewhat audacious.
The second point is something I independently noticed: appealing to practicality when it suits the modeller, but insisting it doesn’t matter elsewhere. If there is solid evidence that reswitching isn’t important, that’s fine, but then we should also take on board that agents don’t optimise, markets don’t clear, expectations aren’t rational, etc. etc. If we do that, pretty soon the assumptions all fall away and not much is left.
However, it’s the authors’ third point that really hits home:
The third and probably most sophisticated response has been to embrace disaggregate general equilibrium models. The latter models try to describe – conceptually, that is – every aspect of the economic system, down to the smallest detail. The production function in such models separately specifies each individual input, however tiny, so the need to aggregate capital goods into capital does not arise in the first place.General equilibrium models have serious theoretical and empirical weaknesses whose details have attracted much attention. Their most important problem, though, comes not from what they try to explain, but from what they ignore, namely capital. Their emphasis on disaggregation, regardless of its epistemological feasibility, is an ontological fallacy. The social process takes place not at the level of atoms or strings, but of social institutions and organizations. And so, although the ‘shell’ called capital may or may not consist of individual physical inputs, its existence and significance as the central social aggregate of capitalism is hardly in doubt. By ignoring this pivotal concept, general equilibrium theory turns itself into a hollow formality.
In essence, neoclassical economics dealt with its inability to model capital by…eschewing any analysis of capital. However, the theoretical importance of capital for understanding capitalism (duh) means that this has turned neoclassical ‘theory’ into a highly inadequate took for doing what theory is supposed to do, which is to further our understanding.
Apparently, if you keep evading logical, methodological and empirical problems, it catches up with you! Who knew?
Monday, February 3, 2014
Mosler on Krugman, The Unconcious Liberal
Yes, unemployment- source of the greatest economic loss as well as a social tragedy and a crime against humanity, is always the evidence deficit spending is too low. There is no exception as a simple point of logic. The currency is a simple public monopoly, and the excess capacity we call unemployment- people looking to sell their labor in exchange for units of that currency- is necessarily a consequence of the monopolist restricting the supply of net financial assets.Read rest here.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Tim Koechlin on Soaring US Inequality and Why It Matters
The United States is, by every reasonable measure, the most unequal of the world’s rich countries. And this is not new development. Evidence of extreme and rising economic inequality in the US is quite overwhelming. In 1979, the top 1% earned about 9% of all income; in 2013, they earned 24%. The incomes of the top 0.1% have grown even faster. More than half of all economic growth since 1976 has ended up in the pockets of the top 1%. Meanwhile, the incomes of the shrinking middle class have stagnated, and the incomes of those with a high school education or less have fallen substantially. The purchasing power of the minimum wage has fallen by about 15% since 1979. One in five kids lives in poverty.Read rest here
Was the devaluation in Argentina good and inevitable: A reply to Rapetti
Back in the mid-1990s I was a student of John Eatwell (his last TA in the microeconomics course at the New School, I think, before he went back to Cambridge), and one thing that has stuck with me over the years is that he argued no economic debate was ever solved by empirical evidence. Hyperbole aside, and I should say it is not a great exaggeration, logic has also not been particularly good a clarifying debates in economics (just think of the Capital Debates).
So last week I wrote this post on why the Argentine devaluation is not a traditional Balance of Payments crisis. As I noted it was a policy decision in the works for a long while. At any rate, neither the real exchange rate, nor the current account are in a position that per se is unsustainable. That is still true, however, Martín Rapetti from the Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad claims I am confused in my criticism of his work, as much as that of Frenkel and Bresser-Pereira, the so-called New Developmentalists, which believe that devaluation is good for growth.
He suggests now that he does not claim that devaluation is good for long run growth (my quote from Bresser in the previous post was very clear suggesting that is in fact what New Developmentalists think). In his words:
So last week I wrote this post on why the Argentine devaluation is not a traditional Balance of Payments crisis. As I noted it was a policy decision in the works for a long while. At any rate, neither the real exchange rate, nor the current account are in a position that per se is unsustainable. That is still true, however, Martín Rapetti from the Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad claims I am confused in my criticism of his work, as much as that of Frenkel and Bresser-Pereira, the so-called New Developmentalists, which believe that devaluation is good for growth.
He suggests now that he does not claim that devaluation is good for long run growth (my quote from Bresser in the previous post was very clear suggesting that is in fact what New Developmentalists think). In his words:
"Formulations like mine seem to be the source of another confusion in Matias’ analysis. He argues that people like Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira, Roberto Frenkel and me were advocating for a devaluation because we support the idea that maintaining a competitive real exchange rate (CRER) is good for growth."He argues now that the reason for wanting a devaluation was:
"based on the inconsistencies of macroeconomic policy and not on my frustration about the abandonment of the competitive RER strategy that Argentina carried out between 2002 and circa 2008."
Althought Martín does not quite spell out what the contradictions are (and they are not the current account or the real exchange rate apparently, since he says: "He [that would be me, Matías] is right: the current account deficit was only 0.5% of GDP in 2013 (although it would higher without the import controls) and the RER is certainly not as overvalued as in Brazil (which, by the way, is very overvalued [that has no run on the currency, I might add])." The imbalances are one might assume inflation, and the cause of inflation as Frenkel and others have suggested is the excess demand (read fiscal deficits). So he wanted, and by the way I've heard this from almost anybody connected to CEDES, more fiscal adjustment. In fact, in the CEDES story, the government started to move away from good macro policy when Roberto Lavagna, which included several CEDES insiders, left the government at the end of 2005.
On this new position, let me refer again to my previous post (from March 2012) in which I quoted a paper Frenkel presented at a conference organized by Bresser, in which he said:
His other critique is decidedly bizarre. He argues
Second, exactly because the problem is the low rates of interest when compared with holding dollars, you see that this is not a problem associated to the exchange rate being overvalued or the current account being unsustainable in the short run. It is something that could have been solved long ago with a higher rate of interest. Mind you, Martín is simply wrong when he says that since 2010 the Central Bank of Argentina was using the nominal exchange rate as an anchor for prices (he is really confused on this one; just check the rate of depreciation), and I should know since I was at the bank at some point during this period (actually Brazil did that, and that explains lower inflation in Brazil).
But here comes the cherry on top of the ice-cream. Why would depreciation still be good for Martín? Because the long-term exchange rate elasticity of exports is actually high. The short-term isn't and that's why in the short run the depreciation will be contractionary and he has some doubts about it. But in the long run things are hunky dory. So here is NOT about imbalances, but depreciation is good for growth because it increases competitiveness and exports (wink, wink, devaluation is not good, but yes it is; and I'm confused!). In his words:
“the monetary and fiscal policies required to accompany the adoption of a SSCRER target must also have special features: the permanent expansionary stimulus that is part and parcel of the SSCRER heightens the importance of the restraining role to be played by fiscal and monetary policies.”Let me emphasize this, the notion was that a stable and competitive real exchange rate is so powerful (permanent expansionary stimulus he says, sic) as an instrument for growth that you need fiscal and monetary contraction. Note that devaluation and macroeconomic contraction are the traditional tools of the IMF for countries with balance of payments problems. Part of what I suggested in my previous post is that heterodox authors tended to be more circumspect about the incredible advantages of depreciation. Martín's nuance about disequilibria (fiscal expansion) and not the effects of devaluation on growth are really not clear. If I was confused, he must explain how. Did Frenkel and him changed their position? If so I'm glad, but certainly I'm NOT the one confused here.
His other critique is decidedly bizarre. He argues
"Matías seems to miss the important point that as long as expected depreciation at the exchange rate that the Central Bank is defending is higher than the yield of domestic assets, there would be an excess demand for foreign currency that would eventually lead to the depletion of FX reserves and the collapse of the domestic currency."First of all, in the post Martín criticizes I say the following:
"Note that if the government on top of the current measures adds fiscal contraction (monetary tightening is a given, since higher rates of interest will be needed to avoid more capital flight; and the effects of monetary contraction can be compensated by subsidized public credit) as the New Developmentalists wanted (since for them inflation was caused by excess demand) then the slowdown will be significant and even a recession could take place."In other words, yes the government must increase the rate on interest to avoid the expectations of a devaluation. My point indeed was that back in 2012 they should have done that, when the blue was closer to 5, and it was easier to do and avoid a depreciation (which Martín wanted and I didn't) and that he used to think it was good, but now that happened he has second thoughts (you'll see why in a second).
Second, exactly because the problem is the low rates of interest when compared with holding dollars, you see that this is not a problem associated to the exchange rate being overvalued or the current account being unsustainable in the short run. It is something that could have been solved long ago with a higher rate of interest. Mind you, Martín is simply wrong when he says that since 2010 the Central Bank of Argentina was using the nominal exchange rate as an anchor for prices (he is really confused on this one; just check the rate of depreciation), and I should know since I was at the bank at some point during this period (actually Brazil did that, and that explains lower inflation in Brazil).
But here comes the cherry on top of the ice-cream. Why would depreciation still be good for Martín? Because the long-term exchange rate elasticity of exports is actually high. The short-term isn't and that's why in the short run the depreciation will be contractionary and he has some doubts about it. But in the long run things are hunky dory. So here is NOT about imbalances, but depreciation is good for growth because it increases competitiveness and exports (wink, wink, devaluation is not good, but yes it is; and I'm confused!). In his words:
"The problem is that Matías confuses an important distinction between short-run and long-run effects of the real exchange rate on economic performance. In Krugman-Taylor, a real devaluation (a change in the RER) has a negative effect on output and employment in the short run; in Frenkel-Taylor, a competitive RER level has a positive effect on long-run growth."I guess I missed that class by Lance, and that's the source of my confusion. I should note that I had a few exchanges with Martín on Twitter (see below in Spanish) on which he also suggested that in the long run was good for growth.
@mgrapetti @SSAlfredo y Martin si cambiar los precios relativos resuelve el problema externo, cual es la elasticidad? Pq no das el numero
— Matías Vernengo (@NakedKeynes) June 16, 2013
Here is the problem, Martín (neither him, nor Frenkel or anybody else as far as I know) has shown this great long-term elasticities that show that depreciation in the long-run (the Frenkel-Taylor, not Krugman-Taylor story) is good for growth. The evidence I cited here (from this paper by Fiorito and Silvio and Nahuel Guaita) actually shows that there is no indication of a positive elasticity in any run. If Martín shows that there is some evidence on positive and significant long-term real exchange elasticities for exports (I'm really interested in what methodology he suggests for finding this result, and separate the short and long run elasticities), like Keynes I will change my mind, and try to prove Eatwell wrong on the role of empirical evidence in economic debates. But if you (Martín) cannot come up with evidence to support your nice theoretical model (the Frenkel-Taylor that rules in the long run, are we clear?!), what should we call you? Confused does not seem the correct definition for someone that keeps defending an idea for which there is no evidence (don't worry, I'm not in the game of name calling).Finally, I should add here, that while I do think that the government has committed mistakes, and allowing the blue (the black market) exchange rate to depreciate and not hike interest rates earlier is one of those (I would add the need for a more aggressive Import Substitution policy to reduce the external constraint, something I defended as early as March 2012; see here), I still think that this government should be supported and is much better than the alternative (Martín is certainly not in favor of the government).
EPI: Recovery Fails To Reach Escape Velocity in 2013
We now know that the U.S. economy grew at a 3.2 percent annualized rate in the last quarter of 2013, and grew 1.9 percent during all of 2013. This is simply too slow to generate a full recovery from the damage inflicted by the Great Recession in a reasonable amount of time. Too many policymakers seem eager to move on to other economic issues, but the necessary condition for addressing almost every other economic challenge—be it boosting job quality or increasing opportunity or checking the rise of extreme inequality—is a return to full employment, and that should be the nation’s first priority.See rest here and here
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Pivetti on Advanced Capitalism and the Determinants of the Change in Income Distribution: A Classical Interpretation
Technological change, though paramount in the dominant theoretical approach to distribution in terms of the relative scarcity of factors, also plays a significant role in the alternative classical surplus approach.See rest here
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)