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How to avoid a repeat of 1937 – lessons for both the fed and the BoJ

The Japanese stock market dropped more than 7% on Thursday and even though we are up 3% this morning there is no doubt that “something” had scared investors.

There are likely numerous reasons for the spike in risk aversion on Thursday, but one reason is probably that investors are getting concerned about the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan getting closer to scaling back monetary easing. That has reminded me on what happened in 1937 – when market participants panicked as they started to fear that the Federal Reserve would move prematurely towards monetary tightening – after the US economy had been in recovery since FDR took the US off the gold standard in 1933.

Going into 1937 both US government officials and the Fed officials started to voice concerns about inflationary pressures, which clearly sent a signal to market participants that monetary policy was about to be tightened. That caused the US stock market to slump and sent the US economy back into recession – the famous Recession in the Depression.

At the core of this policy mistake was the fact that the fed had never clearly defined and articulated a clear monetary policy target after going off the gold standard in 1933. The situation in many ways is similar today.

Market participants in general know that the fed is likely to scale back monetary easing when the US economy “improves”, but there is considerable uncertainties about what that means and the fed still has not clearly articulated its target(s). Furthermore, the fed continues to be very unclear about its monetary policy instruments. Hence, the fed still considers the fed fund target rate as its primary monetary policy instrument while at the same time doing quantitative easing.

These uncertainties in my view certainly make for a much less smooth ‘transition’ in monetary policy conditions in the US. Therefore, instead of focusing on when to scale back “QE” the fed should focus 100% on explaining its target so nobody is in doubt about what the fed really is targeting. Furthermore, the fed needs to stop thinking and communicating about monetary policy in terms of interest rates. The money base and not the interest rate is the key monetary policy instrument in the US and it is about time that the fed acknowledges this.

How about trying the “perfect world”

The best way of getting rid of these monetary policy uncertainties is for the fed to first of all give an explicit nominal target. Preferably the fed should simply state that it will conduct monetary policy in a way to increase nominal GDP by 15% in the coming two years and thereafter target 5% annual NGDP growth (level targeting).

Second, the fed then should become completely clear about its monetary policy. The best thing would be a futures based NGDP targeting. See here for a description about how that would work. Alternatively the fed should clearly spell out a ‘reaction function’ and clearly describe its monetary policy instrument – what assets will the fed buy to expand or contract the money base? It is really simple, but so far the fed has totally failed to do so.

Japanese monetary policy has become a lot clearer after Haruhiko Kuroda has become Bank of Japan chief, but even the BoJ needs to work on its communication policy. Why is the BoJ not just announcing that since it now officially has a 2% inflation target it will ‘peg’ the market expectations for example for 2-year or 5 year (or both) inflation at 2% – and hence simply announce a commitment to sell or buy inflation-linked bonds so the implicit breakeven inflation is 2% on all time horizons at any period in time. This is of course a set-up Bob Hetzel long ago suggested for the fed. Maybe it is time the BoJ invited Bob back to for a visit in Japan?

If the fed and the BoJ in this fashion could greatly increased monetary policy transparency the markets would not be left guessing about what they central banks are targeting or about whether there will be a sudden redrawl of monetary policy accommodation.  Thereby it could be ensured that the scaling back of monetary easing will happen in a disorderly fashion. There is not reason why we need repeating the mistakes of 1937.

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Both David Glasner and Marcus Nunes have related posts.

See also here if you want to read what I wrote about the Japanese “jitters” yesterday in my day-job.

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by Lars Christensen on May 24, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bank of Japan, Federal Reserve, Robert Hetzel, The Great Depression
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Posted by Lars Christensen on May 24, 2013

http://marketmonetarist.com/2013/05/24/how-to-avoid-a-repeat-of-1937-lessons-for-both-the-fed-and-the-boj/

Patri Friedman on Market Monetarism

Here is Patri Friedman on his blog “Patri’s Peripatetic Peregrinations”:

“I sent a friend an intro to market monetarism (a modern, blogosphere-inspired adjustment to the traditional monetarism my grandfather helped create). He was surprised I believed that printing money could be good, rather than agreeing with the Austrians.”

I am happy to see that Patri has read my paper on Market Monetarism.

There is of course nothing wrong in thinking that “printing money could be good” (under certain circumstances). In fact this is completely in line with what Patri’s grandfather Milton Friedman argued in terms of the Great Depression and the Japanese crisis.

Patri in his post also discusses how a “helicopter drop” could happen in a world of digital cash. Interestingly enough this discussion is similar to a recent internal Market Monetarist debate between Nick Rowe, Bill Woolsey and Scott Sumner about whether money is a medium of exchange or a medium of account. See for example here, here and here. Kurt Schuler also has contributed to the discussion. Finally Miles Kimball similarly has a very interesting post on the case for electronic money.

Patri’s discussion of digital cash to some extent also relates to my own discussion of monetary reform in Africa and the development of mobile based money (See for example here, here, here and here).

Anyway, I am happy to Patri seems to be showing some sympathy for Market Monetarism.

HT Lasse Birk Olesen

6 Comments
by Lars Christensen on November 11, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Bill Woolsey, Kurt Schuler, Lars E. O. Svensson, Miles Kimball, Nick Rowe, Patri Friedman, Project African Monetary Reform, Project African Monetary Reform (PAMR), Scott Sumner, The Great Depression
Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on November 11, 2012

http://marketmonetarist.com/2012/11/11/patri-friedman-on-market-monetarism/

David Laidler: “Two Crises, Two Ideas and One Question”

The main founding fathers of monetarism to me always was Milton Friedman, Anna Schwartz, Karl Brunner, Allan Meltzer and David Laidler. The three first have all now passed away and Allan Meltzer to some extent seems to have abandoned monetarism. However, David Laidler is still going strong and maintains his monetarist views. David has just published a new and very interesting paper – “Two Crises, Two Ideas and One Question” – in which he compares the Great Depression and the Great Recession through the lens of history of economic thought.

David’s paper is interesting in a number of respects and any student of economic history and history of economic thought will find it useful to read the paper. I particularly find David’s discussion of the views of Allan Meltzer and other (former!?) monetarists interesting. David makes it clear that he think that they have given up on monetarism or as he express it in footnote 18:

“In this group, with which I would usually expect to find myself in agreement (about the Great Recession), I include, among others, Thomas Humphrey, Allan Meltzer, the late Anna Schwartz, and John Taylor, though the latter does not have quite the same track record as a monetarist as do the others.”

Said in another way David basically thinks that these economists have given up on monetarism. However, according to David monetarism is not dead as another other group of economists today continues to carry the monetarist torch – footnote 18 continues:

“Note that I self-consciously exclude such commentators as Timothy Congdon (2011), Robert Hetzel (2012) and that group of bloggers known as the “market monetarists”, which includes Lars Christensen, Scott Sumner, Nicholas Rowe …. – See Christensen (2011) for a survey of their work – from this list. These have all consistently advocated measures designed to increase money growth in recent years, and have sounded many themes similar to those explored here in theory work.”

I personally think it is a tremendous boost to the intellectual standing of Market Monetarism that no other than David Laidler in this way recognize the work of the Market Monetarists. Furthermore and again from a personal perspective when David recognizes Market Monetarist thinking in this way and further goes on to advocate monetary easing as a respond to the present crisis I must say that it confirms that we (the Market Monetarists) are right in our analysis of the crisis and helps my convince myself that I have not gone completely crazy. But read David’s paper – there is much more to it than praise of Market Monetarism.

PS This year it is exactly 30 years ago David’s book “Monetarist Perspectives” was published. I still would recommend the book to anybody interested in monetary theory. It had a profound impact on me when I first read it in the early 1990s, but I must say that when I reread it a couple of months ago I found myself in even more agreement with it than was the case 20 years ago.

Update: David Glasner also comments on Laidler’s paper.

6 Comments
by Lars Christensen on September 9, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Allan Meltzer, Anna Schwartz, David Laidler, Karl Brunner, Milton Friedman, MM Research agenda, Reading recommendations, The Great Depression, The Great Recession
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Posted by Lars Christensen on September 9, 2012

http://marketmonetarist.com/2012/09/09/david-laidler-two-crises-two-ideas-and-one-question/

Between the money supply and velocity – the euro zone vs the US

When crisis hit in 2008 it was mostly called the subprime crisis and it was normally assumed that the crisis had an US origin. I have always been skeptical about the US centric description of the crisis. As I see it the initial “impulse” to the crisis came from Europe rather than the US. However, the consequence of this impulse stemming from Europe led to a “passive” tightening of US monetary conditions as the Fed failed to meet the increased demand for dollars.

The collapse in both nominal (and real) GDP in the US and the euro zone in 2008-9 was very similar, but the “composition” of the shock was very different. In Europe the shock to NGDP came from a sharp drop in money supply growth, while the contraction in US NGDP was a result of a sharp contraction in money-velocity. The graphs below illustrate this.

The first graph is a graph with the broad money supply relative to the pre-crisis trend (2000-2007) in the euro zone and the US. The second graph is broad money velocity in the US and the euro zone relative to the pre-crisis trend (2000-2007).

The graphs very clearly illustrates that there has been a massive monetary contraction in the euro zone as a result of M3 significantly undershooting the pre-crisis trend. Had the ECB kept M3 growth on the pre-crisis trend then euro zone nominal GDP would long ago returned to the pre-crisis trend. On the other hand the Federal Reserve has actually been able to keep M2 on the pre-crisis path. However, that has not been enough to keep US NGDP on trend as M2-velocity has contracted sharply relative the pre-crisis trend.

Said in another way a M3 growth target of for example 6.5% would basically have been as good as an NGDP level target for the euro zone as velocity has returned to the pre-crisis trend. However, that would not have been the case in the US and that I my view illustrates why an NGDP level target is much preferable to a money supply target.

The European origin of the crisis – or how European banks caused a tightening of US monetary policy

Not surprisingly the focus of the discussion of the causes of the crisis often is on the US given both the subprime debacle and the collapse of Lehman Brothers. However, I believe that the shock actually (mostly) originated in Europe rather than the US. What happened in 2008 was that we saw a sharp rise in dollar demand coming from the European financial sector. This is best illustrated by the sharp drop in EUR/USD from close to 1.60 in July 2008 to 1.25 in early November 2008. The rise in dollar demand is obviously what caused the collapse in US money-velocity and in that regard it is notable that the rise in money demand in Europe primarily was an increase in demand for dollar rather than for euros.

This is why I stress the European origin of the crisis. However, the cause of the crisis nonetheless was a tightening of US monetary conditions as the Fed (initially) failed to appropriately respond to the increase in dollar demand – mostly because of the collapse of the US primary dealer system. Had the Fed had a more efficient system for open market operations in 2008 then I believe the crisis would have been much smaller and would have been over already in 2009. As the Fed got dollar-swap lines up and running and initiated quantitative easing the recovery got underway in 2009. This triggered a brisk recovery in both US and euro zone money-velocity. In that regard it is notable that the rebound in velocity actually was somewhat steeper in the euro zone than in the US.

The crisis might very well have ended in 2009, but new policy mistakes have prolonged the crisis and once again European problems are causing most headaches and the cause now clearly is that the ECB has allowed European monetary conditions to become excessively tight – just have a look at the money supply graph above. Euro zone M3 has now dropped more than 15% below the pre-crisis trend. This policy mistake has to some extent been counteracted by the Fed’s efforts to increase the US money supply, but the euro crisis have also led to another downleg in US money velocity. The Fed once again has failed to appropriately counteract this.

Both the Fed and the ECB have failed

In the discussion above I have tried to illustrate that we cannot fully understand the Great Recession without understanding the relationship between US and euro zone monetary policy and I believe that a full understanding of the crisis necessitates a discussion of European dollar demand.

Furthermore, the discussion shows that a credible money supply target would significantly have reduced the crisis in the euro zone. However, the shock to US money-velocity shows that an NGDP level target would “perform” much better than a simple money supply rule.

The conclusion is that both the Fed and the ECB have failed. The Fed failed to respond appropriately in 2008 to the increase in the dollar demand. On the other hand the ECB has nearly constantly since 2008/9 failed to increase the money supply and nominal GDP. Not to mention the numerous communication failures and the massively discretionary conduct of monetary policy.

Even though the challenges facing the Fed and ECB since 2008 have been somewhat different in nature I would argue that proper nominal targets (for example a NGDP level target or a price level target) and better operational procedures could have ended this crisis long ago.

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Related posts:

Failed monetary policy – (another) one graph version
International monetary disorder – how policy mistakes turned the crisis into a global crisis

32 Comments
by Lars Christensen on July 25, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in ECB, Federal Reserve, Monetary institutions, Monetary policy rules, MV=PY, NGDP Targeting, Nominal Income Targeting, The Great Depression, Velocity
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Posted by Lars Christensen on July 25, 2012

http://marketmonetarist.com/2012/07/25/between-the-money-supply-and-velocity-the-euro-zone-vs-the-us/

Is monetary easing (devaluation) a hostile act?

One of the great things about blogging is that people comment on your posts and thereby challenge your views and at the same time create new ideas for blog posts. Therefore I want to thank commentator Max for the following response to my previous post:

“I don’t think exchange rate intervention is a good idea for a large country. For one thing, it’s a hostile act given that other countries have exactly the same issue. And it can’t work without their cooperation, since they have the power to undo the intervention.” 

Let me start out by saying that Max is wrong on both accounts, but I would also acknowledge that both views are more or less the “consensus” view of devaluations and my view – which is based on the monetary approach to balance of payments and exchange rates – is the minority view. Let me address the two issues separately.

Is monetary easing a hostile act?

In his comment Max describes a devaluation as a hostile act towards other countries. This is a very common view and it is often said that it is a reflection of a beggar-thy-neighbour policy for a country to devalue its currency. I have two comments on that.

First, if a devaluation is a hostile act then all forms of monetary easing are hostile acts as any form of monetary easing is likely to lead to a weakening of the currency. Let’s for example assume that the Federal Reserve tomorrow announced that it would buy unlimited amounts of US equities and it would continue to do so until US nominal GDP had increased 15%. I am pretty sure that would lead to a massive weakening of the US dollar. In fact we can basically define monetary easing as a situation where the supply of the currency is increased relative to the demand for the currency. Said, in another way if the currency weakens it is a pretty good indication that monetary conditions are getting easier.

Second, I have often argued that the impact of a devaluation does not primarily work through an improvement in the country’s competitiveness. In fact the purpose of the devaluation should be to increase prices (and wages) and hence nominal GDP. An increase in prices and wages can hardly be said to be an improvement of competitiveness. It is correct that if prices and wages are sticky then you might get an initial real depreciation of the currency, however that impact is not really important compared to the monetary impact. Hence, a devaluation will lead to an increase in the money supply (that is how you engineer the devaluation) and likely also to an increase in money-velocity as inflation expectations increase. Empirically that is much more important than any possible competitiveness effect.

A good example of how the monetary effect dominates the competitiveness effect: the Argentine devaluation in 2002 actually led to a deterioration of the Argentine trade balance and what really was the driver of the recovery was the sharp pickup in domestic demand due to an increase in the money supply and money-velocity rather than an improvement in exports. See my previous comment on the episode here. When the US gave up the gold standard in 1933 the story was the same – the monetary effect strongly dominated the competitiveness effect.

Yet another example of the monetary effect of a devaluation dominating the competitiveness effect is Denmark and Sweden in 2008-9. It is a common misunderstanding that Sweden grew stronger than Denmark in 2008-9 because a sharp depreciation of the Swedish krona led to a massive improvement in competitiveness. It is correct that Swedish competitiveness was improved due to the weakening of the krona, but this was not the main reason for Sweden’s relatively fast recovery from the crisis. The real reason was that Sweden did not see any substantial decline in money-velocity and the Swedish money supply grew relatively steadily through the crisis.

Looking at Swedish exports in 2008-9 it is very hard to spot any advantage from the depreciation of the krona. In fact Swedish exports did more or less as badly as Danish exports in 2008-9 despite the fact that the Danish krone did not depreciate due to Denmark’s fixed exchange rate regime. However, looking at domestic demand there was a much sharper contraction in Danish private consumption and investment than was the case in Sweden. This difference can easily be explained by the sharp monetary contraction in Denmark in 2008-9 (both a drop in M and V).

Furthermore, let’s assume that the Federal Reserve announced massive intervention in the FX market to weaken the US dollar and the result was a sharp increase in US nominal GDP. Would the rest of the world be worse off? I doubt it. Yes, the likely impact would be that for example German exports would get under pressure as the euro would strengthen dramatically against the dollar. However, nothing would stop the ECB from also undertaking monetary easing to counteract the strengthening of the euro. This is what somebody calls “competitive devaluations” or even “currency war”. However, in a deflationary environment such “currency war” should be welcomed as it basically would be a competition to print money. Hence, the “net result” of currency war would not be any change in competitiveness, but an increase in the global money supply (and global money-velocity) and hence in global nominal GDP. Who would be against that and in a situation where the global economy continues to contract and as such a currency war like that would be very welcomed news. In fact we can not really talk about a “war” as it would be mutually beneficial. So I say please bring on the currency war!

Is global monetary cooperation needed? No, but…

This brings us to Max’s second argument: “And it can’t work without their cooperation, since they have the power to undo the intervention.“

This is obviously related to the discussion above. Max seems to think a devaluation will not work if it is met by “competitive devaluations” from all other countries. As I have argued above this is completely wrong. It would work as the devaluation will increase the money supply and money-velocity even if the devaluation has no impact on competitiveness at all. As a result there is no need for international monetary cooperation. In fact healthy competition among currencies is exactly what we need. In fact every time the major nations of the world have gotten together to agree on realigning exchange rates it has had major negative consequences.

However, there is one argument for international coordination that I think is extremely important and that is the need for cooperation to avoid “competitive protectionism”. The problem is that most global policy makers perceive devaluations in the same way as Max. They see devaluations as hostile acts and therefore these policy makers might react to devaluations by introducing trade tariffs and other protectionist measures. This is what happened in the 1930s where especially the (foolish) countries which maintained the gold standard reacted by introducing trade tariffs against for example the UK and the Scandinavian countries, which early on gave up the gold standard.

Unfortunately Mitt Romney seems to think as Max

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has said that his first act as US president would be to slap tariffs on China for being a “currency manipulator”. Here is what Romney recently said:

“If I’m president, I will label China a currency manipulator and apply tariffs” wherever needed “to stop them from unfair trade practices”

The discussion above should show clearly that Romney’s comments on China’s currency policy is economically meaningless – or rather extremely dangerous. Imagine what would be the impact on the US economy if China tomorrow announced a 40% (just to pick a number) revaluation of the yuan. To engineer this the People’s Bank of China would have to cause a sharp contraction in the Chinese money supply and money-velocity. The result would undoubtedly throw China into a massive recession – or more likely a depression. You can only wonder what that would do to US exports to China and to US employment. Obviously this would be massively negative for the US economy.

Furthermore, a sharp appreciation of the yuan would effectively be a massive negative supply shock to the US economy as US import prices would skyrocket. Given the present (wrongful) thinking of the Federal Reserve, that might even trigger monetary tightening as US inflation would pick up. In other words the US might face stagflation and I am pretty sure that Romney would have no friends left on Wall Street if that where to happen and he would certainly not be reelected in four years.

I hope that Romney has some economic advisors that realize the insanity of forcing China to a massive appreciation of the yuan. Unfortunately I do not have high hope that there is an understanding of these issues in today’s Republican Party – as it was the case in 1930 when two Republican lawmakers Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley sponsored the draconian and very damaging Smoot-Hawley tariff act.

Finally, thanks to Max for your comments. I hope you appreciate that I do not think that you would like the same kind of protectionist policies as Mitt Romney, but I do think that when we get it wrong on the monetary impact of devaluations we might end up with the kind of policy response that Mitt Romney is suggesting. And no, this is no endorsement of President Obama – I think my readers fully understand that. Furthermore to Max, I do appreciate your comments even though I disagree on this exact topic.

PS if you want to learn more about the policy dynamics that led to Smoot-Hawley you should have a look at Doug Irwin’s great little book “Peddling Protectionism: Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression”.

Update: Scott Sumner has a similar discussion of the effects of devaluation.
46 Comments
by Lars Christensen on July 4, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Argentina, China, Deflation, Devaluation, Douglas Irwin, Mitt Romney, Reading recommendations, The Great Depression, The Great Recession
Tagged , , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on July 4, 2012

http://marketmonetarist.com/2012/07/04/is-monetary-easing-devaluation-a-hostile-act/

The ECB has the model to understand the Great Recession – now use it!

By chance I today found an ECB working paper from 2004 – “The Great Depression and the Friedman-Schwartz hypothesis” by Christiano, Motto and Rostagno.

Here is the abstract:

“We evaluate the Friedman-Schwartz hypothesis that a more accommodative monetary policy could have greatly reduced the severity of the Great Depression. To do this, we first estimate a dynamic, general equilibrium model using data from the 1920s and 1930s. Although the model includes eight shocks, the story it tells about the Great Depression turns out to be a simple and familiar one. The contraction phase was primarily a consequence of a shock that induced a shift away from privately intermediated liabilities, such as demand deposits and liabilities that resemble equity, and towards currency. The slowness of the recovery from the Depression was due to a shock that increased the market power of workers. We identify a monetary base rule which responds only to the money demand shocks in the model. We solve the model with this counterfactual monetary policy rule. We then simulate the dynamic response of this model to all the estimated shocks. Based on the model analysis, we conclude that if the counterfactual policy rule had been in place in the 1930s, the Great Depression would have been relatively mild.”

It is interesting stuff and you would imagine that the model developed in the paper could also shed light on the causes and possible cures for the Great Recession as well.

Is it only me who is reminded about 2008-9 when you read this:

“The empirical exercise conducted on the basis of the model ascribes the sharp contraction of 1929-1933 mainly to a sudden shift in investors’ portfolio preferences from risky instruments used to finance business activity to currency (a flight-to-safety explanation). One interpretation of this finding could be that households . in strict analogy with commercial banks holding larger cash reserves against their less liquid assets . might add to their cash holdings when they feel to be overexposed to risk. This explanation seems plausible in the wake of the rush to stocks that occurred in the second half of the 1920.s. The paper also documents how the failure of the Fed in 1929-1933 to provide highpowered money needed to meet the increased demand for a safe asset led to a credit crunch which in turn produced deflation and economic contraction.”

The authors also answer the question about the appropriate policy response.

“We finally conduct a counterfactual policy experiment designed to answer the following questions: could a different monetary policy have avoided the economic collapse of the 1930s? More generally: To what extent does the impossibility for central banks to cut the nominal interest rate to levels below zero stand in the way of a potent counter-deflationary monetary policy? Our answers are that indeed a different monetary policy could have turned the economic collapse of the 1930s into a far more moderate recession and that the central bank can resort to an appropriate management of expectations to circumvent - or at least loosen - the lower bound constraint.

The counterfactual monetary policy that we study temporarily expands the growth rate in the monetary base in the wake of the money demand shocks that we identify. To ensure that this policy does not violate the zero lower-bound constraint on the interest rate, we consider quantitative policies which expand the monetary base in the periods a shock. By injecting an anticipated inflation effect into the interest rate, this delayed-response feature of our policy prevents the zero bound constraint from binding along the equilibrium paths that we consider. At the same time, by activating this channel, the central bank can secure control of the short-term real interest rate and, hence, aggregate spending.

The conclusion that an appropriately designed quantitative policy could have largely insulated the economy from the effects of the major money demand shocks that had manifested themselves in the   late 1920s is in line with the famous conjecture of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz (1963).”

So what policy rule are the authors talking about? Well, it is basically a feedback rule where the money base is expanded to counteract negative shocks to money-velocity in the previous period. This is not completely a NGDP targeting rule, but it is close – at least in spirit. Under NGDP level targeting the central bank will increase in the money base to counteract shocks to velocity to keep NGDP on a stable growth path. The rule suggested in the paper is a soft version of this. It could obviously be very interesting to see how a real NGDP rule would have done in the model.

Anyway, I can highly recommend the paper – especially to the members of the ECB’s The Governing Council and I see no reason that they should not implement a rule for the euro zone similar to the one suggested in the paper. If the ECB had such a rule in place then Spanish 10-year bond yields probably would not have been above 7% today.

PS Scott Sumner has been looking for a model for some time. Maybe the Christiano-Motto-Rostagno model would be something for Scott…


 

6 Comments
by Lars Christensen on June 18, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Anna Schwartz, Deflation, ECB, Economic and monetary history, euro crisis, Federal Reserve, Milton Friedman, MM Research agenda, Monetary policy rules, The Great Depression, The Great Recession
Tagged , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on June 18, 2012

http://marketmonetarist.com/2012/06/18/the-ecb-has-the-model-to-understand-the-great-recession-now-use-it/

1931-33 – we should learn something from history

My previous post on Ferguson’s and Roubini’s FT piece about the lessons from 1932 reminded me that I actually have done quite a bit of blog posts on 1931-33 myself. Both about the actual events of those years and about what policy lessons these events should have for today’s policy makers.

Here is a list of some of those earlier blog posts:

1931:
The Tragic year: 1931
Germany 1931, Argentina 2001 – Greece 2011?
Brüning (1931) and Papandreou (2011)
Lorenzo on Tooze – and a bit on 1931
“Meantime people wrangle about fiscal remedies”
“Incredible Europeans” have learned nothing from history
The Hoover (Merkel/Sarkozy) Moratorium
80 years on – here we go again…
“Our Monetary ills Laid to Puritanism”
Monetary policy and banking crisis – lessons from the Great Depression

1932:
“The gold standard remains the best available monetary mechanism”
Hjalmar Schacht’s echo – it all feels a lot more like 1932 than 1923
Greek and French political news slipped into the financial section
Political news kept slipping into the financial section – European style
November 1932: Hitler, FDR and European central bankers
Please listen to Nicholas Craft!
Needed: Rooseveltian Resolve
Gold, France and book recommendations
“…political news kept slipping into the financial section”
Gideon Gono, a time machine and the liquidity trap
France caused the Great Depression – who caused the Great Recession?

1933:
Who did most for the US stock market? FDR or Bernanke?
“The Bacon Standard” (the PIG PEG) would have saved Denmark from the Great Depression
Remember the mistakes of 1937? A lesson for today’s policy makers
I am blaming Murray Rothbard for my writer’s block
Irving Fisher and the New Normal

4 Comments
by Lars Christensen on June 10, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Reading recommendations, The Great Depression, The Great Recession

Posted by Lars Christensen on June 10, 2012

http://marketmonetarist.com/2012/06/10/1931-33-we-should-learn-something-from-history/

No Nouriel, I am no longer optimistic – it feels like 1932

Niall Ferguson and Nouriel Roubini have a comment in the Financial Times. I have great respect for both gentlemen – even though I often disagree with both of them – and their latest comment raises some very key issues concerning the future of the euro zone and Europe in general. And it is very timely given that this weekend the Spanish government has asked the EU for a massive new bail out.

I will not address all of the topic’s in Ferguson’s and Roubini’s article, but let me just bring this telling quote:

We fear that the German government’s policy of doing “too little too late” risks a repeat of precisely the crisis of the mid-20th century that European integration was designed to avoid.

We find it extraordinary that it should be Germany, of all countries, that is failing to learn from history. Fixated on the non-threat of inflation, today’s Germans appear to attach more importance to 1923 (the year of hyperinflation) than to 1933 (the year democracy died). They would do well to remember how a European banking crisis two years before 1933 contributed directly to the breakdown of democracy not just in their own country but right across the European continent.

Hear! Hear! I have often been alarmed how European policy makers are bringing up the risk of higher inflation (1923) rather than the risk of deflation (1392-33) and I have earlier said that 2011 was shaping out to be like 1931. Unfortunately it more and more seems like 2012 is turning out to be like 1932 for Europe.

In the 1930s the crisis let to an attempt of a violent “unification” of Europe. This time around European policy makers are calling for more political integration to solve a monetary crisis despite the fact that European institutions like the ECB and the European Commission so far has failed utterly in solving the crisis. We all know that what is needed is not closer political integration in the EU, but monetary easing from the ECB. The ECB could end this crisis tomorrow, but the problem is that we apparently will only get monetary easing once further political integration is forced through. This is unfortunately what you get when political outcomes become part of the monetary policy reaction.

Last time I spoke face-to-face with Nouriel Roubini was in 2010 (I think just after Bernanke had announced QE2). Nouriel asked me “Lars, are you still so optimistic?” . I actually don’t remember my reply, but today my answer would certainly have been “NO! It all feels very much like 1932″

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UPDATE – some earlier posts in 1931-33:

1931:
The Tragic year: 1931
Germany 1931, Argentina 2001 – Greece 2011?
Brüning (1931) and Papandreou (2011)
Lorenzo on Tooze – and a bit on 1931
“Meantime people wrangle about fiscal remedies”
“Incredible Europeans” have learned nothing from history
The Hoover (Merkel/Sarkozy) Moratorium
80 years on – here we go again…
“Our Monetary ills Laid to Puritanism”
Monetary policy and banking crisis – lessons from the Great Depression

1932:
“The gold standard remains the best available monetary mechanism”
Hjalmar Schacht’s echo – it all feels a lot more like 1932 than 1923
Greek and French political news slipped into the financial section
Political news kept slipping into the financial section – European style
November 1932: Hitler, FDR and European central bankers
Please listen to Nicholas Craft!
Needed: Rooseveltian Resolve
Gold, France and book recommendations
“…political news kept slipping into the financial section”
Gideon Gono, a time machine and the liquidity trap
France caused the Great Depression – who caused the Great Recession?

1933:
Who did most for the US stock market? FDR or Bernanke?
“The Bacon Standard” (the PIG PEG) would have saved Denmark from the Great Depression
Remember the mistakes of 1937? A lesson for today’s policy makers
I am blaming Murray Rothbard for my writer’s block
Irving Fisher and the New Normal

4 Comments
by Lars Christensen on June 10, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in ECB, Economic and monetary history, euro crisis, The Great Depression, The Great Recession, Uncategorized
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on June 10, 2012

http://marketmonetarist.com/2012/06/10/no-nouriel-i-am-no-longer-optimistic-it-feels-like-1932/

Gustav Cassel on Hoover’s Mistake and monetary policy failure

While I was going through old Australian newspaper articles (don’t ask me why…) I came across a wonderful little article by Gustav Cassel published on February 17 1930. In the article Cassel spells out why fiscal policy would not be able to pull out the US of the Depression and why the Great Depression was caused by  monetary policy failure. The whole thing sounds very Market Monetarist.

I have reproduced the entire article below. Enjoy the wisdom of Gustav Cassel.

President Hoover’s Mistake

- By Professor Gustav Cassel, the Distinguished Swedish Economist

It has been an open question for many years as to what Governments can do to counteract an economic depression… It has above all been suggested that public works should be regulated according to the fluctuations caused from time to time by economic conditions. In other words, the Government should start comprehensive undertakings at the moment when private enterprise begins to lag. The United States are at present in such a condition. Under the energetic leadership of President Hoover it seems that the Government is to intervene promptly and effectively in order to prevent the Stock Exchange crisis from developing into an economic depression.

This case can provide a most useful lesson for the general treatment of this problem and deserves special attention because Europe is more or less bound to be affected by an American depression and will then have to face the same difficulties against which America is fighting today. President Hoover’s programme, which has been given the name of ‘Prosperity Maintenance’ mainly comprises the starting of big undertakings in order to prevent the threatened reduction of industrial employment. To this purpose the official departments are to co-operate with the private employers.

The President called together at the White House several groups representing the economic activity of the country, and the representatives of the railways at once assured him of their cooperation in the form of a comprehensive programme of extensions.

Apart from a certain psychological influence, the President’s programme, is, however, in every way a mistake. It rests not only on an incorrect conception of the actual conditions, but also on an over-estimate the Government’s power.

In the endeavours to create employment by extraordinary new enterprises, it must be remembered very clearly that the burden will fill on the nation’s savings and reduce the amount of money available for the increase of true capital. An intervention by the State in order to increase the existing works and their machinery equipment might possibly be a sensible policy if a surplus of savings were available. The Hoover programme seems to assume that it is the case. In his message to Congress the President has proclaimed to the whole world that hitherto American capital was invested to an extraordinarily large proportion in stock speculation. The crisis is now said to have set this capital free, and made it available for general economic enterprises.

The ‘Government therefore considered it to be their duty to find employment for the capital supply. Every link in this chain or argument is a fallacy. Speculation in stocks has never involved any capital and cannot involve any. Therefore no capital can flow back from the Stock Exchange to economic enterprise. After all, America has no more available capital requiring a special effort for its employment.

The American Stock Exchange crisis signifies no more than that exaggerated quotations have been reduced to their normal value. There is no crisis in the economic life, but only a certain reduction of capital available, mostly for the building of dwelling houses. This reduction is caused immediately by the fact that the current new savings were not sufficient to maintain the production of real capital in the enormous proportions of last year.

The outstanding feature of the present position is therefore undoubtedly a great scarcity of capital. This being the case, is it not foolish to undertake large new enterprises in the belief that they can be paid for with available capital? Any effort in this direction, especially if made by the Government, is bound to waste the already scarce reserves, and thus to weaken the entire political economy.

That scarcity of capital is the principal feature of the present situation is also shown by the fact that the export of American capital has decreased very considerably indeed. If more surplus money were offered America would increase its export of capital and thereby improve the purchasing power of the other countries for the American export products. This would free the Government from many cares concerning inner political economy and at the same time render superfluous its efforts to exert its political power in creating outlets for American exports.

Such a development would be most welcome to all the countries needing capital. Conditions, the whole world over have shaped themselves in such a way that the export of American capital is an indispensable condition for a prosperous world economy. The whole world must therefore view with grave concern a Government intervention which, on account of its uneconomic investments, is bound to render impossible the accumulation of American savings.

Government intervention is in this case obviously to the detriment of the economic organisation. It would be far better to leave that organisation to look after itself. If this were done, any available new surplus money would very quickly be put, to use, provided that no new hindering circumstances should arise. An important American journal has recently collected a number of views on this subject by industrial leaders.

The general impression to be gathered from this inquiry is that the industrialists intend to carry on, notwithstanding the Stock Exchange crisis. In most branches of industry there is an acute necessity to enlarge the buildings and to improve the equipment. On reading the inquiry made by this journal we certainly do not feel that there is any lack of opportunities to use any available American capital. In the present situation there is indeed only one single factor which can seriously hinder development and this one factor has its origin in a Government Department. I am referring to the bank rate policy or in a wider sense to the limitation of money supplies to the economic life by the Federal Reserve System. This limitation has of late been far too strict. The reason is the attempt to regulate the bank rate in such a way that it, would have a supreme influence on the Stock Exchange, limiting the speculative inflation of share prices.

There is no doubt that this attempt constitutes an improper transgression of the natural limits of the tasks evolving upon a central banking institution – an attempt which ultimately can be traced back to the ardent desire of the Government to usurp an ever growing share of influence upon the country’s political economy. It is true that after the Stock Exchange crisis the bank rate has been slightly reduced. But this measure was taken far too slowly and hesitatingly.

The Federal Reserve system has not kept pace with the development, but since the last summer has adhered to rates which were far too high, with the result of a collapse in prices which seriously endangered the whole political economy, and which, so long as it continues will naturally prevent any sensible persons from making new investments. If the fall in prices were to continue, this would unavoidably prevent American economy from continuing its recent wonderful developments.

The collapse in prices is bound to drag with it the whole of the rest of the world and to create a universal condition which must react on the economy of the United States. And all this entirely unnecessary collapse of prices is exclusively the result of the mishandling of the American dollar value which in its turn is the consequence of an uncalled for excursion of Government influence into the province of economic problems.

The whole matter is a blatant example of what happens if we yield to the modern tendency of permitting the Government to meddle unnecessarily with economics. The Government assumes a task which is not in its province; in consequence of this it is driven to mismanage one of its most pertinent tasks, i.e., the supervision of money resources, this causes a depression, which the same government seeks to remedy by measures which are again outside the sphere of its true activity and which can only make the whole position worse.

The particular case under review is really only an illustration of a phenomenon which at present is very general; while neglecting their proper functions, governments greedily seize every opportunity to usurp provinces which are not their concern, and by doing so place themselves – with or against their will – on a plane inclined towards a form of socialism, the aim of which is, in this respect, to risk everything to obtain the utmost.

—–

Other posts on Gustav Cassel:

Gustav Cassel foresaw the Great Depression
Hawtrey, Cassel and Glasner
“Our Monetary ills Laid to Puritanism”
Calvinist economics – the sin of our times
Gustav Cassel on recessions

And Steve Horwitz on why Hoover was an interventionist.

5 Comments
by Lars Christensen on June 9, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Economic and monetary history, Gustav Cassel, The Great Depression
Tagged , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on June 9, 2012

http://marketmonetarist.com/2012/06/09/gustav-cassel-on-hoovers-mistake-and-monetary-policy-failure/

“Meantime people wrangle about fiscal remedies”

The other day I wrote a piece about the risks of introducing politics (particularly fiscal policy) into the central bank’s reaction function. I used the example of the ECB, but now it seems like I should have given a bit more attention to the Federal Reserve as Fed chief Bernanke yesterday said the follow:

“Monetary policy is not a panacea, it would be much better to have a broad-based policy effort addressing a whole variety of issues…I’d be much more comfortable if, in fact, Congress would take some of this burden from us and address those issues.”

So what is Bernanke saying – well he sounds like a Keynesian who believes that we are in a liquidity trap and that monetary policy is inefficient. It is near-tragic that Bernanke uses the exact same wording as Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann used recently (See here). While Bernanke is a keynesian Weidmann is a calvinist. Bernanke wants looser fiscal policy – Weidmann wants fiscal tightening. However, what they both have in common is that they are central bankers who apparently don’t think that nominal GDP is determined by monetary policy. Said, in another other way they say that nominal stability is not the responsibility of the central bank. You can then wonder what they then think central banks can do.

What both Weidmann and Bernanke effectively are saying is that they can not do anymore. They are out of ammunition. This is the good old  “pushing on a string” excuse for monetary in-action.  This is of course nonsense. The central bank can determine whatever level for nominal GDP it wants. Just ask Gedeon Gono. It is incredible that we four years into this mess still have central bankers from the biggest central banks in the world who are making the same mistakes as central bankers did during the Great Depression.

Yesterday Scott Sumner quoted Viscount d’Abernon who in 1931 said:

“This depression is the stupidest and most gratuitous in history!…The explanation of our anomalous situation…is that the machinery for handling and distributing the product of labor has proved inadequate. The means of payment provided by currency and credit have fallen so short of the amount required by increased production that a general fall in prices has ensued…This has not only caused a disturbance in the relations between buyer and seller, but has gravely aggravated the situation between debtor and creditor. The gold standard, which was adopted with a view to obtaining stability of price, has failed in its main function. In the meantime people wrangle about fiscal remedies and similar devices of secondary importance, neglecting the essential question of stability in standard of value…The situation could be remedied within a month by joint action of the principal gold-using countries through the taking of necessary steps by the central banks.”

It is tragic that the same day Scott quotes d’Abernon Ben Bernanke “wrangles about fiscal remedies”. Bernanke of course full well knows that the impact on nominal GDP and prices of fiscal policy depends 100% on actions of the Federal Reserve. Fiscal policy does not determine the level of NGDP – monetary policy determines NGDP (Remember MV=PY!).

The Great Depression was caused by monetary policy failure and so was the Great Recession (See here and here). In the 1930s the Lords of Finance Montagu, Norman, Meyer, Moret, Stringher, Hijikata and Schacht were all wrangling about fiscal remedies and defended their failed monetary policies. Today the New Lords of Finance Bernanke, Shirakawa, Draghi and Weidmann are doing the same thng. How little we – or rather central bankers – have learned in 80 years…

UPDATE: Maybe our New Lords of Finance should read this Easy Guide to Monetary Policy.

18 Comments
by Lars Christensen on June 8, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Ben Bernanke, ECB, Economic and monetary history, euro crisis, Federal Reserve, Fiscal policy, Gold Standard, The Great Depression, The Great Recession
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on June 8, 2012

http://marketmonetarist.com/2012/06/08/meantime-people-wrangle-about-fiscal-remedies/

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