Trilemma or dillema: Rodrik and Palley on Globalization

As a followed up on my recent discussion on Dani Rodrik's paper, below Tom Palley's critique of Rodrik's trilemma between globalization, national sovereignty, and democratic politics. Tom argues that there is no trilemma, only a dilemma, and that democracy is not on the same plane.

From his paper "A Theory of Economic Policy Lock-in and Lock-out via Hysteresis: Rethinking Economists’ Approach to Economic Policy."

Rodrik (2011) has argued that globalization poses a trilemma between globalization, national sovereignty, and democratic politics. He argues that you can have any two, but not all three. The framework in Figure 3 qualifies that interpretation. From the perspective of the nation state there is no trilemma, only a dilemma.

National sovereignty can be identified with national policy space. Globalization creates a trade-off between national policy space and the degree of globalization, with national policy space declining as globalization deepens. Democracy is not at issue. Countries can be outside of globalization and democratic, or they can be engaged in globalization and democratic. Democratic politics is always viable. The problem is globalization diminishes the “content” of democratic politics, as measured by the achievable range of the policy target.

It is these type of concerns that motivate criticism of trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Whereas trade agreements fifty years ago were about reducing tariffs and quotas, today they are “global governance agreements (Palley, 2016)” that are writing the rules of a new world order. These global governance agreements fundamentally impact national policy space. A clear example of this is the new system governing disputes between governments and foreign-based corporate investors, which involves an extra-legal investor – state dispute settlement (ISDS) process that is outside of nations’ own legal systems. As Renato Ruggerio (1996), the first General Secretary of the World Trade Organization observed at its onset: “We are no longer writing the rules of interaction among separate national economies. We are writing the constitution of a single global economy.”

In fact, the problem is likely more complex than illustrated in Figure 3 because a country that seeks to avoid globalization may still find its policy space impacted by globalization. This is illustrated in Figure 4. As globalization increases in the rest of the world (G*0 < G*1), policy space decreases in country i despite unchanged local engagement with globalization (Pi,0(Gi,0, G*0) > Pi,0(Gi,0, G*1)), which reduces the achievable range of the policy target (Xi,0+( Gi,0, G*0) > Xi,0+( Gi,0, G*1)). That is because globalization is relational. When other countries deepen their globalization, that imposes additional constraints on countries that do not follow suit because it negatively impacts the latter’s network of relations. The exact nature of this shift will depend on the type of globalization adopted by the rest of the world.

Read full paper here.

Heterodox, Trespasser, Malthusian and other economist labels

I discussed long ago what it means to be heterodox in economics. Bob Kuttner, who I once saw giving a talk at the New School (in the 1990s), a very sharp journalist that knows quite a bit about economics, sings the praises of Dani Rodrik as an heterodox economist. I discussed Rodrik before, in particular his notion that there is only one economics (neoclassical, of course as in the title of his book One Economics, Many Recipes). And he is not subtle about it either. As I noted back then, in his Has Globalization Gone Too Far, that in spite of Kuttner's review is not particularly critical and is indeed mildly for globalization, Rodrik says that: “when I mention ‘economists’ here, I am, of course, referring to mainstream economics, as represented by neoclassical economists (of which I count myself as one).”

Rodrik is, or was a few years ago at least, in what Colander, Holt and Rosser refer to as the cutting edge of the profession (my views on that here), which is to say he is heterodox in the same way that Joe Stiglitz or Paul Krugman are heterodox. They are willing to suggest that some imperfections make the laissez-faire dream of the most fundamentalist neoclassical authors somewhat overstated. But as much as Krugman and Stiglitz accept the conventional macro model, with the natural rate hypothesis, the same is true for Rodrik, which essentially accepts the basic Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson trade model (for a critique go here). He is a moderate neoclassical economist; a potty trained one if you will, but certainly not heterodox.

Don't get me wrong, in many policy issues Rodrik, like Krugman and Stiglitz, is on the right side, even if he gets there in ways that I would suggest are contradictory, and can be seen as an ally of heterodox economists on these policy issues. But I think it is a bit much to call him a critic of globalization, in particular because it underplays the role of true critics, that often paid a steep professional price, in terms of prestige and money, to defend their views. For example, his critique of the Washington Consensus was that the policies (essentially austerity cum deregulation, trade liberalization and privatization, or what you would call neoliberal policies) were incomplete and more institutional reforms were needed to make them work. So Rodrik was basically playing the Douglas North New Institutional imperfection card (now used very effectively by Acemoglu, Robinson and co-authors). Summarizing his work I said back then:

"Rodrik (1999b) suggested that five types of institutions, defined as behavioral rules that govern the interaction between economic agents, are relevant to explain successful development experiences: property rights, regulatory institutions, institutions for macroeconomic stabilization, institutions for social insurance, and institutions for conflict management."

The problem, as I noticed back then, was that the institutions he was pushing for (note that property rights are in the original Williamson consensus decalogue) were more harmful than good. They reduced the ability to promote state intervention in the economy and the scope for industrial policy, they were geared for macro stability narrowly focused on price stability (he probably wouldn't disagree with the idea of the natural rate in macro), and even when he was for social insurance policies, didn't seem to notice that his macro policies would make more social spending almost by definition impossible.

I should say that I find it very apropos that Kuttner compares him with Albert Hirschman, and calls the latter one of Rodrik's heroes, even if I think Rodrik is a different kind of trespasser, not interested in interdisciplinarity per se, but in using economics concepts for insights into other social sciences. More like a social science imperialist (for my take on Hirschman's interdisciplinarity go here). Hirschman was a development economists that was against planning, and that thought that there was something relevant about Hayek's Road to Serfdom (a book that says that any intervention by the state ends up in a slippery slope towards fascism*; the same argument Reagan made about Medicare in the 1960s). Hirschman had a serious debate with Currie on the issue of planning, regarding the latter's World Bank mission to Colombia, and was generally seen as friendly critic of the mainstream (see Roger Sandilands views, which are, correctly I would add, very critical of Hirschman). Like Rodrik, Hirschman got hired by Harvard, which is hardly known for hiring controversial lefties that go against the grain, which he only left to the Institute of Advanced Studies because he was a terrible teacher. Also, like with Hirschman's contributions, many heterodox and progressive intellectuals tend to overplay the critical aspects of Rodrik's work.

In my view, the problem with the friendly critic, that accepts all of the main tenets of mainstream marginalism, without taking seriously the heterodox critiques of the internal logic of neoclassical economics, is that they end up validating some of this illogical ideas, and the foundation for the neoliberal policies people like Rodrik supposedly abhor.

On a slightly different note, and I guess once we are in the topic of who should be considered heterodox and who is a follower of Hirschman, here is another question of labels. Dietrich Vollrath comes out of the closet as a Malthusian. That's a bit funny. I know neoclassical economists, in particular, after Clark's A Farewell to Alms, have come to embrace the epithet, but in all fairness, for a reasonably educated person Malthusian is sort of an insult (btw, on my views on some of the mistakes with the ideas of demographic transitions and Malthusian traps see this).

* On this, Jeremy Adelman tells us in his biography of Hirschman that: "when he found a copy of Friedrich von Hayek’s recently published (in London, in March 1944) The Road to Serfdom in a Rome bookstore, a nerve was struck. 'Reading this book is very useful for someone like me who grew up in a ‘collectivist’ climate—it makes you rethink many things and has shown me in how many important points I have moved away from the beliefs I had when I was 18 years old.'" Those would be his more progressive, Marxist, convictions. Hirschman had lived in Germany, not the Soviet Union, by the way.

Where is the elasticity? (or more on devaluation and growth)

Since 2007 mainstream economists, and often some heterodox (or more precisely eclectic) authors, have suggested that the Argentine economy is on the verge of collapse (see for example my good friend Bresser-Pereira here or this). A typical argument made by both orthodox economists (some of which favored the Convertibility Plan of the 1990s) and the more unconventional is that real exchange rate (RER) appreciation is at the heart of the Argentine problems and the more recent lack of growth.

I have discussed this before here with respect to the so-called Sustainable and Stable Competitive Real Exchange Rate literature (see here). The argument for a SSCRER was put forward by Frenkel and Taylor in a well-known paper, but the notion has many defenders (see the good paper by Blecker and Razmi from Setterfield's essential book on growth), including more conventional authors like Rodrik. At the risk of being repetitive let me point out the pros and cons of the arguments for devaluation.

Depreciation protects local industry and leads to a boost to domestic production, and also, by leading to an increase in exports, reduces the external constraint of the economy. That would be the substitution effect associated to the change in the relative prices. Yet depreciation also (everything else constant) reduces wages, increases the profits of exporters, and leads (yes, the economy is wage-led) to a reduction in spending and lower levels of activity. In this case, a depreciation does help reduce your external constraint, but by leading to a contraction. The second effect, associated to an income effect, was well-known by heterodox authors, having been developed by Albert Hirschman and Carlos Diaz-Alejandro (for the Argentine case) and then formalized by Krugman and Taylor (see here; subscription required).

At the end of the day it is an empirical question. All the evidence seems to suggest, at least for the Argentine case (here paper by Fiorito and others in Spanish; but it seems to be more general, see here) that income effects tend to be larger than substitution effects, and hence one might be concerned about possible contractionary effects of a depreciation.

In the case of Argentina, it is clear that the expansion of the volume of exports goes hand in hand with the expansion of the world GDP (Figure below).

The relation between the real exchange rate and exports is less clear. As it is shown below after the large real depreciation in 2002, growth in the volume of exports goes hand in hand with significant appreciation.

No doubt defenders of depreciation will argue that the big depreciation in 2002 was essential for export growth afterwards (see Rapetti here who argues that "competitive RER was a key factor behind Argentina’s recovery and growth"). But if you put the depreciation in the wider macroeconomic context of 2002, and compare with the current one, you are bound to have second thoughts.

The depreciated nominal exchange rate in a context of high unemployment (around 22%) did not lead to inflationary pressures, since wage demands were subdued (and hence the nominal depreciation translated into a large real one). Second, spare capacity meant that the protection afforded by the real depreciation led to a huge expansion of domestic production, spurred by the expansion of domestic demand (higher real wages and expansion of fiscal spending, particularly in social programs). Exports actually don't seem to move much with the depreciation. There is no econometric evidence for large elasticity of exports with respect to the exchange rate, in the short or long-run (if someone has it please, please, pretty please with a cherry on top share it; it's been frustrating to have an argument with people that argue a point for which there is no known evidence).

Note that all the above mentioned conditions are not in place now. Unemployment is considerably lower (around 7% or so), and the expansion of real wages and government spending have slowed down (so much so, that in the last year the economy has stalled). So maybe we need less Frenkel and Taylor and more Krugman and Taylor to understand what is going on in Argentina right now.

Mankiw and the myth of one economics

I avoid commenting on Mankiw's blog, since it is, in my view, the worst of the mainstream. I'm okay with Krugman, who at least uses neoclassical economics to try to understand the world (although his economics makes it difficult for him). But Mankiw is a different animal, and seems to be more about justifying the worst of conservative policies. Also, he is the sort of the leader of New Keynesians (or was at some point), which is a terrible misnomer used by fundamentally anti-Keynesian authors [Mankiw is only Keynesian when it is convenient for the 1%; he is against higher taxes, since that would make productive people like him work less; yes a good reason to for higher taxes on the wealthy indeed!].

At any rate, I'll make an exception this time, since I think the topic is relevant. In a recent column on the NYTimes, on the new head of the CEA, an ex-student of his, he said:

"The field of economics offers a lens through which to view the world. For those who buy into it and pursue it as a career, it provides a foundation of a personal and political philosophy. It forever sets you apart — for better or worse — from mere muggles. 

For economists working for politicians, as both Jason and I have, there is an inevitable tension between where the logic of the discipline leads you and what your political allies would like to hear."

This reminds me of the title of Dani Rodrik’s book One Economics, Many Recipes. The notion is that there is only one economics, one field in which there is agreement for the most part. This myth is perpetuated, not only by Mankiw, but by the likes of Krugman and other more progressive mainstream authors too. Like Rodrik, for example.

This is very revealing of their views of what economics is, and what economists do. I commented before on Rodrik's views of economics. Rodrik’s definition of economists is interesting, not so much for what it says, but because of what he feels he needs to say. Rodrik says in his Has Globalization Gone Too Far that: “when I mention ‘economists’ here, I am, of course, referring to mainstream economics, as represented by neoclassical economists (of which I count myself as one).”

The clarification must dispel any doubts of where he stands. He may be critical of certain aspects of the globalization process, but God forbid somebody misconstructs his critique and takes him for a heterodox economist! One is led to believe that Rodrik thinks that the consequences of not being part of the ‘gang’ must be pretty harsh.

In fact, in a post in his blog, nicely titled “Is Neoclassical Economics a Mafia?,” Rodrik conveys the following story: “some years ago, when I first presented an empirical paper questioning some of the conventional views on trade to a high profile economics conference, a member of the audience (a very prominent economist and a former co-author of mine) shocked me with the question ‘why are you doing this?’” Clearly his co-author was concerned with the effects that being critical of free trade might have on Rodrik’s career. Rodrik’s co-author is, most likely, just a good friend, but his question reveals a lot about the dark corners of the edge of the profession.

The point is that neoclassical economics is the only acceptable 'economics', not because logic and empirical evidence compel one to follow the marginalist principles, but because of the sociological pressures of being part of the dominant paradigm and the need to engage in normal science. So being an 'economist' in Mankiw's sense might separate you from mere muggles, but it might make you a member of the Cosa Nostra!

A New Deal for Global Development

An e-discussion group on development strategies after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) co-organized by Richard Kozul-Wright and Jayati Ghosh is available here. They also published a manifesto for a New Deal for Global Development here. There lots of discussions and blog posts (e.g. Butch Montes, Dani Rodrik, and yours truly). Check it out.

Commercial Policy in Latin America

Last week I taught my Raúl Prebisch class, in my Latin American Economic History and Development course, dealing with Import Substitution Industrialization (an annual thing now). The classic paper in English was published in the American Economic Review of 1959. The masters' students have to read the original paper. This follows my two previous posts (here and here) on trade. A few things that are important to notice.

Prebisch clearly says that industrialization (and hence the expansion of domestic production) is an inevitable part of the process of development, something that has been often forgotten as if strategies based on services or intensive agriculture are alternatives to industrialization. We still live in industrial societies (not post-industrial ones), and industry remains the main source for productivity growth (something that was referred to as Kaldor's Second Law of development).

Second, even if there is strong growth of productivity in the primary sector, these tend to be passed to prices and benefit the consumers, mostly in developed countries, whereas at least part of the increases in productivity in the other two sectors are retained by workers in the form of higher wages. So the problem of industrialization is associated to the ability to keep in the developing countries the fruits of technological progress, and not with protectionism for the sake of domestic special interests. Further, the workers expelled from the primary sector (if productivity is to grow there) must be incorporated in the other sectors, and as a result a preoccupation with what he calls (following Lewis) 'surplus manpower' (p. 255).

Last but not least, it's worth again emphasizing on the question of protection (since Prebisch is seen often as the Devil by Free Traders*), that Prebisch (p. 259) notes clearly that: "protection by itself does not increase productivity."

* The typical attitude is I did not read it, and I did not like it. The aversion of the mainstream to Prebisch is so strong that Dani Rodrik confesses in his Prebisch Lecture (see the irony?!) that a month before he had not read any of his works. Basically he found out that Prebisch: "did not favour indiscriminate protection. He anticipated his later critics by recognizing that trade protection on its own would not lead to increased productivity in manufactures, and that it might even resuit in the opposite."