All posts for the month February, 2013

Fiscal devaluation – a terrible idea that will never work

Maybe I am ignorant, but until recently I had never heard of the concept “fiscal devaluation” (at least not that term), but I fear it could be an idea that could have considerable political appeal, but as I understand the idea it smells of protectionism and the idea is based on a mis-diagnosing the reasons for the present crisis – particularly in the euro zone.

What is a “fiscal devaluation”?

The idea behind fiscal devaluations is that a nation can improve it’s competitiveness by basically “twisting” taxes by cutting payroll taxes and finance it by increasing VAT.

The idea is not new. Already back in 1931 John Maynard Keynes suggested a VAT style tariff on all imported goods plus a uniform subsidy on all exports. In 2011 the idea was re-introduced by Gita Gopinath, Emmanuel Farhi and Oleg Itskhoki in their paper “Fiscal Devaluations”.

I will not go through the paper (and it the idea I want to discuss rather than the specific paper), but rather discuss why I find the idea terrible and why I think it will not achieve any of the results suggested by it’s proponents.

Fiscal devaluation is protectionism

The first thing that came to my mind when I heard the description of a fiscal devaluation was that this is basically a typically 1930s style protectionist idea: Tax imports and subsidies exports. Anybody who have studied economics should know that protectionism is extremely negative for everybody and such protectionist ideas will lower the economic welfare of the country that introduces the protectionist measures and of other countries. Only fools advocate protectionism.

Furthermore, I am completely unaware of any countries that came out of the Great Depression through a fiscal devaluation, but I know of many countries that tried. This is an idea that have been tried before and failed before. So why try it again? However, I can easily find numerous examples of countries that have undertaken proper (monetary) devaluations and have succeed. The UK and the “Sterling bloc” in 1931, the US in 1933, Sweden in 1992 and Argentina in 2002. The list is much longer…

The point is that a fiscal devaluation is negative sum game – it hurts everybody – while a monetary devaluation is a positive sum game if the world is caught in a quasi-deflationary environment as has been the case for the last 4-5 years. As I have stress before a monetary devaluation is not a hostile act – a fiscal devaluation certainly is.

Mis-diagnosing the problem

A key problem for the Fiscal devaluationists in my view is that they mis-diagnose the problem in for example South Europe as a problem of competitiveness rather than a problem of weak domestic demand. In that sense it is paradoxical that origin of the idea comes from Keynes.

It might of course be that South Europe has a competitiveness problem in the sense that the real exchange rate is “overvalued”. However, competitiveness does not determine aggregate demand. The real exchange rate determines the composition of aggregate demand, but not the aggregate demand. Aggregate demand is determined by monetary policy. And the lack of aggregate demand is Greece’s (and the other PIIGS’) real problem. The euro crisis is not a competitiveness problem, but a NGDP crisis.

Countries with fixed exchange rates or countries – like Spain or Portugal – that are in currency unions are not able to ease monetary policy as the have “outsourced” their monetary policy – in the case of Spain and Portugal to the ECB. A fiscal devaluation is unable to ease monetary policy – at the most it can only “twist” demand from domestic demand to exports (…there is a small aber dabei – see PPS below). In that sense a fiscal devaluation is mercantilist idea – an idea that exports in some way is “better” than domestic demand.

However, artificially twisting demand from domestic demand reduces the international division of labour. It might be that Keynes or the average German policy maker think that is a great idea, but Adam Smith and David Ricardo are spinning in their graves.

There is only one way out of a quasi-deflationary trap – monetary easing

For countries caught in a quasi-deflationary trap – as the South European countries – a fiscal devaluation might temporarily improve external balances, but it will not do anything about the deflationary pressures. There are only two options for these countries – either they leave the euro or the ECB ease monetary conditions.

Lower taxes is great for long-run growth – twisting taxes is mostly a waste of time

Finally I would like to stress that I in no way is arguing against lowering payroll taxes. However, the purpose of lowering payroll taxes should not be to increase export, but to remove a tax wedge that lowers employment. Lower payroll taxes very likely will increase the level of potential GDP (but not impact nominal GDP). Furthermore, I doubt that higher VAT would be beneficial to any country in the world. Even worse if the central bank – like the ECB – targets headline CPI-inflation then higher VAT rates will temporarily increase headline inflation and that could trigger a monetary tightening. If you think that is alarmist – then just think about what happened when a number of euro zone countries started to increase indirect taxes in 2010-11 at the same time oil prices spiked. The ECB hiked interest rates twice in 2011!

Reading recommendation for policy makers

Concluding, fiscal devaluation is a terrible idea and we should call it what it is – protectionism – and any policy maker out there who is tempted by these ideas should carefully study the experience of the 1930s. The best way to learn about the serious welfare cost of this sort of ideas is to read Doug Irwin’s excellent little book Trade Policy Disaster.

In his book Doug clearly shows that fiscal devaluation style measures never worked but helped escalate trade wars while proper monetary devaluations helped countries like the US, the UK and Sweden get out of the Great Depression.

You could also read Chapter 10 in Larry White’s great book Clashes of Economic Ideas. In that chapter Larry explains the disaster that was economic policy in India in the first 4-5 decades after Indian independence in 1947. India of course pursued (and to a large extent still do) the kind of policies that the fiscal devaluationistists advocate. The result of course was decades of lacklustre growth.

So before policy makers are tempted by protectionist ideas packaged in modern New Keynesian models they should study history and then they should realize that “fiscal devaluation” is terrible idea that will never work.

PS Maybe it is not a surprise that the French government – yes the government that introduced a 75% marginal income tax (!) – find a fiscal devaluation attractive.

PPS I write above that improving competitiveness cannot ease monetary conditions. That is not entirely right as anybody who knows Hume’s traditional price-specie-flow mechanism would acknowledge, but that is at best a very indirect channel and is very unlikely to be very powerful. In fact there has been a quite drastic improvement in external balance in some of the PIIGS, but none of these economies are exactly booming.

Update: Doug Irwin tells me that Joan Robinson used to called ideas like a fiscal devaluation “Silly clever”.  I think it is an excellent term – from time to time you will see economic papers that are overly mathematical and complex that come up with answers that are a result of certain (random?) model assumptions that gives anti-economic results. I am afraid silly clever has become fashionable and certain academic economists.

Update 2: My friend David Glasner just wrote a blog post addressing a similar topic – competitive devaluations – we reach very similar conclusions. I love David’s Ralph Hawtrey quote on competitive devaluation – it is very similar to what I argue above.

22 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 10, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Devaluation, Douglas Irwin, euro crisis, Fiscal Devaluation, Gita Gopinath, Larry White
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 10, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/02/10/fiscal-devaluation-a-terrible-idea-that-will-never-work/

Larry White on Bernard Lietaer’s new book

Larry White has a very insightful review of Bernard Lietaer and Jacqui Dunne’s new book “Rethinking Money: How New Currencies Turn Scarcity Into Prosperity“. As Larry writes in a Facebook update “I wanted to like the book more”. I have the exact same feeling about much of Lietaer’s work.

Bernard Lietaer of course is a pioneer in the “local currency” movement. Fundamentally local currencies (or parallel currencies) have a lot in common with free banking and it is of course why Larry and myself would like to like the work of people like Bernard Lietaer. However, the problem with the local currency crowd in my view is that it’s leading proponents base their arguments for “local currencies” on seriously flawed economic arguments. In fact I would rather say that they tend to have anti-economic arguments. As Larry notes in his review:

“In Rethinking Money, economist Bernard Lietaer and journalist Jacqui Dunne offer interesting accounts of community currency projects more or less like Berkshares around the world. But they admire them for rather different reasons. The dominant monetary system is problematic, in their view, because it “perpetuates scarcity and breeds competition,” stifles cooperation, makes life stressful, concentrates wealth at the top, causes financial instability, and threatens the environment. It does so chiefly because the need to pay interest is “structurally embedded” in the system.

…Today’s government-dominated monetary and financial systems do of course exhibit instability. But the book’s other indictments of them are more dubious. Any monetary system “perpetuates” (does not abolish) “scarcity,” as economists use the term, and so too does any barter system. Scarcity, meaning that we do not have enough time and resources to accomplish all of our imaginable goals, is an ineluctable feature of human life. Competition is not a problem: Indeed, to bring about greater prosperity we need more competition, not less, and especially so in money and banking. Freer competition promotes rather than stifles greater social cooperation. Free-market banking and money-issue would end the government’s monopoly on basic money and its control over the interbank transfer system. It would end both special privileges for commercial banks and special restrictions on their activities. Greater efficiency, stability, and prosperity would follow. But to think that “monetary scarcity can be a thing of the past” is to engage in wishful thinking.”

I completely agree with Larry’s comments – Lietaer and other “local currency” proponets’ analysis is flawed. That is too bad as I strongly believe that we can learn a lot from the experience with “local currencies”. In fact I believe that “local currencies” can help us remove monetary disequilibrium. However, the general anti-capitalist and “localist” (or rather protectionist) perspective of people like Bernard Lietaer is entirely wrong.

One of the key problems in the local currency literature is that it seems to be completely unaffected by the research on Free Banking. As Larry correctly notes:

They unfortunately never mention F.A. Hayek’s unconventional work The Denationalization of Money, nor any of the literature of the last 30 years concerning non-fiat, redeemability-based free banking.

In reviewing Georgina M. Gómez’s boo Argentina’s Parallel Currency about Argentina’s experience with parallel currencies I made a similar comment:

What strikes me when I read Dr. Gómez’s book is the near total lack of references to Free Banking theory and to monetary theory in general. For example there is no reference to Selgin, White, Horwitz and other Free Banking theorists. There is no references to Leland Yeager’s views on monetary disequilibrium either. That is too bad because I think theorists such as Selgin and Yeager would make it much easier for Gómez to explain and understand the emergence of CCS if she had utilized monetary disequilibrium theory and Free Banking theory.

As I noted – I strongly believe that we can learn a lot about monetary issues and particularly about the feasability of Free Banking by studying local/parallel currencies, but we need to do it from the perspective of Larry White rather than from the perspective of Bernard Lietaer – competition in money and finance is good and is a source of stability rather than instability.

See some of my earlier posts on local currencies here:

Free Banking theorists should study Argentina’s experience with parallel currencies

Time to try WIR in Greece or Ireland? (I know you are puzzled)

PS for a Free Banking critique of local currency thinking see George Selgin’s piece “The Folly that is “Local” Currency”

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by Lars Christensen on February 10, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Free Banking, George Selgin, Larry White
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 10, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/02/10/larry-white-on-bernard-lietaers-new-book/

Mathilde, Mathias and Carney – family life and blogging

Thursday was a very interesting day for me. You might think it was so because Mark Carney – the next Bank of England governor – was testifying in the British parliament. But frankly speaking even though Carney said some interesting things I have to disappoint you dear Mark – I wasn’t really listening. I had more important things to do.

What can be more important that than? Well, as Bob Hetzel expressed it – the Christensen household grew by 33% on Thursday as my wife gave birth to a beautiful Daughter – Mathilde. Her soon to be three year old brother Mathias is very proud – and his parents are very prod and happy as well.

So why do I tell you that? Should blogs be personal? No not necessarily, but the great thing about both writing and reading blogs is that they are written in a personal way with few disclaimers and that is why blogs are here to stay. And that is what I really want to reflect a bit on.

First, all when I write a blog post I do it at odd times when I can sneak in 5 or 30 minutes to do it. It is typically late at night when the rest of the family is sleeping or early in the morning – or when I am traveling, which I do quite a bit. That means that I rarely think about the structure in my posts. I just write. It is just about getting things off my chest or rather get out stuff that is in my head. Having been thinking about monetary policy issues a lot for more than two decades have led to a certain “overload” and I need to empty my head a bit. And yes, I desperately want people to read what I write and I want them to like what I write. But it is actually more about expressing my views than anything else. I think that is the case for most people writing blogs – whether it is about monetary policy or wine.

Obviously it makes it much easier to write blog posts when you don’t think much about the structure of the posts and write what you think rather than what you think people would like you to write. And editing? Forget about it – yes, I do read through my post, but frankly speaking you will have to live with my typos. The important thing is the message. It should be noted that I have people that are so very kind to help me editing in the sense that they will send me corrections to my text. That I always gladly welcome and I do try to correct my typos when I have time. So you are always welcome to drop me a mail about anything in that regard (lacsen@gmail.com).

I enjoy my blogging tremendously and it has brought me into contact with extremely interesting people from all over the world – particularly in Northern America. Another very enjoyable thing about blogging is that it is completely unpretentious and there is certainly nothing snobbish about it. I have many commentators who are completely normally people – “Amateur economists” who are interested just interested in understand the world they live in. I love that. As I have said many times “Economics is not an education. Economics is a state of mind”

But I must admit my favourite readers likely are the many economics students and PhD students that follow and comment on my blog. I love when I get mails from you guys about that world and what to make of it. You are all a great inspiration.

The worst temptation in blogging is to become a “blogging asshole”. Any blogger will tell you that they every single day will check out how many visitors their blog have had on a given day. I certainly do that – and I am surely more happy on days when a lot of people have visits my blog. I have noticed that I can maximize the number of visitors to my blog and the easiest way to do that is to become a “blogging asshole”. So what is a blogging asshole. To me it is somebody who first of all is hostile to other bloggers. Somebody who in more or less nasty ways attack the views of other bloggers and commentators. In fact I think that if I did a “I hate Paul Krugman” post every week it would do a lot to boost the number of visitors on my blog, but it would also generate traffic that I would consider as unwelcomed. I love debates about monetary policy issues, but I mostly just want people to get the message. I am no saint. I have been an blogging asshole from time to time when you thing has upset me. Here is an example.

I believe that blogging has become increasing influential and will continue to play an important role in public debate and that is especially the case in the area of economic policy. The case of NGDP level targeting is obviously a very good example. As a central bank governor from a not to be disclosed European country said to me recently “Lars, you must be happy these days. Everybody is talking about NGDP targeting”.

But blogging is not scientific research and we should not forget about the importance of scientific research. That said the two things do certainly not rule out each other. As my readers know I like to share research I have read (or plan to read). Here is the latest example.

Anyway, time to go with my son Mathias to pick up my beloved wife Hanne and our daughter Mathilde.

PS Mark Carney, just relax I did find time to read your comments in the British parliament. I was slightly disappoint that we did not have a more clear endorsement of NGDP level targeting, but I certainly understand the politics of this issue so I also understand that we might be much closer to NGDP level targeting in the UK than Carney’s testimony could lead one to conclude.

8 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 9, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bank of England, Mark Carney, Robert Hetzel
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 9, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/02/09/mathilde-mathias-and-carney-family-life-and-blogging/

Pricing in Carney

Here is a paper I did with my colleague Anders Vestergård Fischer on the Bank of England and what to expect from the new BoE governor Mark Carney – obviously with a special focus on NGDP level targeting.

Our conclusion is that the markets are not in any way priced for NGDP targeting in the UK yet.

3 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 6, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bank of England, Mark Carney
Tagged , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 6, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/02/06/pricing-in-carney/

Don’t ever tell me again that monetary policy does not work! Chuck Norris visits Japan

I continue to be completely puzzled that somebody would think that central banks somehow have run out of ammunition and that monetary policy is impotent. The developments in the global financial markets since August-September last year clearly tell you that monetary policy is extremely potent – also when interest rates are at the Zero Lower Bound.

Just take a look at this story from Japan today:

Japanese shares rose, with the Nikkei 225 Stock Average heading for the highest close since September 2008, as the yen fell after Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said he will step down ahead of schedule.

…The Nikkei 225 gained 3 percent to 11,377.53 as of 12:38 p.m. in Tokyo, heading for the highest close since Sept. 29, 2008, two weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Volume today was 48 percent above the 30-day average. The broader Topix Index advanced 2.8 percent to 966.03, with eight stocks rising for each that fell.

…The Topix has surged 34 percent since elections were announced on Nov. 14 on optimism a new government will push for aggressive stimulus. The gauge is trading at 1.14 times book value, compared with 2.1 for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and 1.45 for the Stoxx Europe 600 Index.

(Update: Nikkei is actually up 4%!)

And from another story:

The yen slid to its weakest level in almost three years against the dollar and euro on speculation Japan’s government will hasten the selection of a new central bank chief to take further steps to end deflation.

Japan’s currency added to yesterday’s biggest drop versus the euro in more than a week after Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said he will step down on March 19, almost three weeks before his term is due to end. Demand for the 17- nation euro was supported on prospects the European Central Bank will refrain from easing monetary policy tomorrow. The Australian dollar slid after data showed the nation’s retail sales unexpectedly fell in December.

Financial markets are the best indicators of the monetary policy stance we have – a surging Japanese stock market and much weaker yen is a very strong indication that Japanese monetary conditions are getting decisively easier. Easier monetary conditions mean higher Japanese nominal GDP – just wait and see.

The market action in the Japanese markets this morning is yet another extremely clear demonstration of the Chuck Norris effect – that monetary policy does not only work through “printing money”, but also through expectations. As Scott Sumner likes to say – monetary policy works with long and variable leads. Said in another way a new Bank of Japan governor has not even been appointed but he is already easing monetary conditions in Japan as Mark Carney is in the UK.

And to all you Keynesian fiscalists out there I challenge you to find me one single example of “optimism” about “fiscal stimulus” having moved any major stock market by 4% in a day!

What we are seeing now in the US, Japan and likely soon in the UK is the kind of Rooseveltian Resolve that brought the US economy out of the Great Depression in 1933 after Roosevelt went off the gold standard and trust me – monetary policy does work! In the 1930s the “gold bloc” countries failed to understand that – today it is the ECB – but luckily for Europeans the US and Japan are leading the charge and is pulling us out of this crisis. That is what the global stock markets have been celebrating since August-September. It is really simple.

6 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 6, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bank of Japan, Chuck Norris Effect, Mark Carney, Scott Sumner
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 6, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/02/06/dont-ever-tell-me-again-that-monetary-policy-does-not-work-chuck-norris-visits-japan/

Chuck Norris and why Mark Carney is already easing UK monetary policy

These days we are getting a proper illustration of the Chuck Norris effect – that the central bank can ease monetary policy through sheer credibility without even printing more money. In fact in the case of Mark Carney he is now easing monetary policy in the UK even before he has become Bank of England governor. That is pretty impressive, but also good news for the UK economy. It is of course the expectation that Mark Carney as coming BoE governor will be in charge of introducing some form of NGDP level targeting.

This is from Bloomberg today:

“U.K. inflation expectations rose to the highest level in 21 months amid speculation Mark Carney will expand monetary policy and spur price rises when he takes over as Bank of England governor in July.

The so-called break-even rate increased for a fifth day before Carney testifies to U.K. lawmakers this week after telling the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last month that policy in developed countries isn’t “maxed out.” Ten-year bonds fell after an industry report showed U.K. services expanded in January, undermining demand for fixed-income assets. The pound weakened against the euro.”

Market expectations of inflation in my view are one of the best measures of changes in the monetary policy stance. When inflation expectations are inching up it is a very clear indication that monetary conditions are getting easier. That is what is happening in the UK at the moment.

Central banks essentially have two monetary policy instruments. First of all they can print money – increase the money base. Second they can guide expectations. The latter is often much more important and that is exactly what we are seeing in the UK markets these days.

Effectively Mark Carney is already in charge of UK monetary policy – the only thing he has to do is hint what he would like to see happen with UK monetary policy going forward.

9 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 5, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bank of England, Chuck Norris Effect, Mark Carney
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 5, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/02/05/chuck-norris-and-why-mark-carney-is-already-easing-uk-monetary-policy/

Taylor, rules and central bank independence – When Taylor is right and wrong

John Taylor is out with new paper on “The Effectiveness of Central Bank Independence Versus Policy Rules”.

Here is the abstract:

“This paper assesses the relative effectiveness of central bank independence versus policy rules for the policy instruments in bringing about good economic performance. It examines historical changes in (1) macroeconomic performance, (2) the adherence to rules-based monetary policy, and (3) the degree of central bank independence. Macroeconomic performance is defined in terms of both price stability and output stability. Factors other than monetary policy rules are examined. Both de jure and de facto central bank independence at the Fed are considered. The main finding is that changes in macroeconomic performance during the past half century were closely associated with changes the adherence to rules-based monetary policy and in the degree of de facto monetary independence at the Fed. But changes in economic performance were not associated with changes in de jure central bank independence. Formal central bank independence alone has not generated good monetary policy outcomes. A rules-based framework is essential.”

So far I have only run thought very fast, but it looks very interesting and I certainly do agree with the main conclusion that the important thing is a rule-based monetary framework rather than central bank independence. Taylor obviously prefers his own Taylor rule – Market Monetarists including myself prefer NGDP level targeting. Nonetheless getting central banks to follow a rule based monetary policy must be the key objective for monetary policy pundits. That is the view of John Taylor and Market Monetarists alike.

Here is another very interesting paper – “The Influence of the Taylor rule on US monetary policy” – certainly related to Taylor and the Taylor rule.

Here is the abstract:

“We analyze the influence of the Taylor rule on US monetary policy by estimating the policy preferences of the Fed within a DSGE framework. The policy preferences are represented by a standard loss function, extended with a term that represents the degree of reluctance to letting the interest rate deviate from the Taylor rule. The empirical support for the presence of a Taylor rule term in the policy preferences is strong and robust to alternative specifications of the loss function. Analyzing the Fed’s monetary policy in the period 2001-2006, we find no support for a decreased weight on the Taylor rule, contrary to what has been argued in the literature. The large deviations from the Taylor rule in this period are due to large, negative demand-side shocks, and represent optimal deviations for a given weight on the Taylor rule.”

John Taylor has long argued have long argued that the present crisis was a result of the Federal Reserve diverging from the Taylor rule in years just prior to 2008 and that caused a boom-bust in the UK economy. The aforementioned paper by Pelin Ilbas, Øistein Røisland and Tommy Sveen indicate that John Taylor is wrong on that view.

So concluding, John Taylor is right that we need a rule based monetary policy framework, but he is wrong about what rule we need.

HT Jens Pedersen

PS I still find Taylor’s focus on interest rates as a monetary policy instrument both frustrating and very wrong. It might have been the biggest problem with the Taylor rule – that central bankers have been led to think that “the” interest rate is the only instrument at their disposal.

 

5 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 5, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in John Taylor, Taylor rule
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 5, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/02/05/taylor-rules-and-central-bank-independence-when-taylor-is-right-and-wrong/

The RBA just reminded us about the “Export Price Norm”

In my view one of the key reasons that Australia avoided recession in 2008-9 was the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) effectively is operating what I earlier have called a “Export Price Norm”. Here is what I earlier had to say about that:

One of the reasons why I think the RBA has been relatively successful is that it effectively has shadowed a policy of what Jeff Frankel calls PEP (Peg the currency to the Export Price) and what I (now) think should be called an “Export Price Norm” (EPN). EPN is basically the open economy version of NGDP level targeting.

If the primary factor in nominal demand changes in the economy is exports – as it tend to be in small open economies and in commodity exporting economies – then if the central bank pegs the price of the currency to the price of the primary exports then that effectively could stabilize aggregate demand or NGDP growth. This is in fact what I believe the RBA – probably unknowingly – has done over the last couple of decades and particularly since 2008. As a result the RBA has stabilized NGDP growth and therefore avoided monetary shocks to the economy.

Under a pure EPN regime the central bank would peg the exchange rate to the export price. This is obviously not what the RBA has done. However, by it’s communication it has signalled that it would not mind the Aussie dollar to weaken and strengthen in response to swings in commodity prices – and hence in swings in Australian export prices. Hence, if one looks at commodity prices measured by the so-called CRB index and the Australian dollar against the US dollar over the last couple of decades one would see that there basically has been a 1-1 relationship between the two as if the Aussie dollar had been pegged to the CRB index. That in my view is the key reason for the stability of NGDP growth over the past two decade. The period from 2004/5 until 2008 is an exception. In this period the Aussie dollar strengthened “too little” compared to the increase in commodity prices – effectively leading to an excessive easing of monetary conditions – and if you want to look for a reason for the Australian property market boom (bubble?) then that is it.

This morning the RBA had it regular monetary policy meeting and see here what the bank had to say:

“The inflation outlook, as assessed at present, would afford scope to ease policy further, should that be necessary to support demand…On the other hand the exchange rate remains higher than might have been expected, given the observed decline in export prices”

This is a pretty clear restatement of the “export price norm” (“the exchange rate remains higher than might have been expected, given the observed decline in export prices”). Note also the wording “support demand”. “Demand” is basically an other word for nominal GDP.

So yes, the RBA did not cut interest rates, but it has used the market and particularly the exchange rate channel to ease monetary conditions. This is pretty much in line with Bennett McCallum’s suggestion that small open-economies that operate monetary policy with interest rates close to zero should utilize the exchange rate as a policy instrument. This is what McCallum has called the MC rule.

So effectively – the RBA is indirectly targeting NGDP and seems to pretty well understand the McCallum’s MC rule as it continues to utilize the “Export Price Norm”. So Australia is hardly my biggest worry at the moment.

10 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 5, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Exchange rate policy, Exchange rates, Export Price Norm, McCallum, Reserve Bank of Australia
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 5, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/02/05/the-rba-just-reminded-us-about-the-export-price-norm/

Gabe Newell on prediction markets – NGDP level targeting and Lindsay Lohan

This is interesting – Gabe Newell on Youtube on the value of prediction markets. I love it…Gabe is co-founder and managing director of Video game developer video game development and online distribution company Valve Corporation (I stole that from Wikipedia). This guy is brilliant and he certainly understands markets.

Some of my earlier posts on prediction markets:

Yet another argument for prediction markets: “Reputation and Forecast Revisions: Evidence from the FOMC”
Benn & Ben – would prediction markets be of interest to you?
Prediction markets and government budget forecasts
Central banks should set up prediction markets
Markets are telling us where NGDP growth is heading
Scott’s prediction market
Bank of England should leave forecasting to Ladbrokes
Ben maybe you should try “policy futures”?
Robin Hanson’s brilliant idea for central bank decision-making

1 Comment
by Lars Christensen on February 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Gabe Newell, Prediction markets
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Posted by Lars Christensen on February 4, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/02/04/gabe-newell-on-prediction-markets-ngdp-level-targeting-and-lindsay-lohan/

Spanish and Italian political news slipped into the financial section

One of my favourite Scott Sumner blog posts is on the connection been monetary policy failure and the impact of political news on the financial markets. I have quoted Scott many times on this issue, but let me do it again:

I once read all the New York Times from the 1930s (on microfilm.)  You can’t even imagine how frustrating it was.  They knew they had a big problem.  Then knew that deflation had badly hurt the economy (including the capitalists.)  They knew that monetary policy could reflate.  And yet . . .

Weeks went by, then months, then years.  Somehow they never connected the dots.

“Monetary policy is already highly stimulative.”

“There’s a danger we’d overshoot toward too much inflation.”

“Maybe the problems are structural.”

“There are green shoots, things are getting worse at a slower pace.  The economy needs to heal itself.”

“Consumer demand is saturated.  Even workingmen can now afford iceboxes and automobiles.  We produced too much stuff in the 1920s.”

And the worst part was the way political news kept slipping into the financial section.  Nazis make ominous gains in the 1932 German elections, Spanish Civil War, etc, etc.  In the 1930s the readers didn’t know what came next—but I did.

It has been a long time since political headlines really have been able to move the global financial markets (remember the fiscal cliff story never really did it). However, just take a look at these two stories from today:

 Ten-year Spanish government bond yields rose on Monday as the country’s opposition party called for the resignation of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy over a corruption scandal.

…and here:

Ten-year Italian government bond yields also rose on concerns that a scandal involving Monte Paschi bank could see a rise in the popularity of the centre-right party in the polls, whose election charge is being led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Since August-September the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan the have moved in the direction of easing monetary policy and a significantly more ruled basked monetary policy and even the ECB has eased up with ECB chief Draghi’s promising to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro. And Mark Carney has given investors hope that the Bank of England will move towards some form of NGDP level targeting. As a result the “euro crisis” has more or less disappeared from the headlines in the newspapers’ “financial section” (just take a look at what Google trends has to say).

Hence, it seems pretty clear that the markets’ “responsiveness” to political worries is a function of the tightness of global monetary conditions with tighter monetary conditions leading to a bigger impact of political jitters.

So where are we now? It to me all dependent on the ECB. If the ECB move towards a clearly rule based regime – in a similar fashion as the Fed and the BoE (and likely soon also the Bank of England) then we are likely to see markets becoming more immune to political jitters. On the other hand if the ECB moves back to the bad habit of conditioning monetary policy on political outcome then once again the markets will start worrying about the finer details of Italian and Spanish politics.

PS Some would argue that European monetary conditions have become tighter recently as a result of higher money market rates and yields. However, I don’t think that is the case. Higher yields and rates reflect growth optimism – just look at European stock markets and implied inflation expectations in the European fixed income markets. Market Monetarists don’t run for the door in panic when yields rise – rather we argue that you should not make the interest rate fallacy and confuse higher (lower) rates/yields with tighter (easier) monetary policy. As Milton Friedman reminds us rates and yields are high (low) when monetary policy has been easy (tight).

8 Comments
by Lars Christensen on February 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in ECB, euro crisis, Italy, Spain
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on February 4, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/02/04/spanish-and-italian-political-news-slipped-into-the-financial-section/

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