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US capital spending and a lesson in the monetary transmission mechanism

This is from Bloomberg.com:

Companies in the U.S. are beginning to empty their deep pockets and boost capital spending as they look past the specter of sequestration and global growth risks.

Orders for capital goods excluding aircraft and military equipment — an indicator of future business investment — increased 1.5 percent in May, a third consecutive advance and the longest streak since October 2011. Chief executive officers are more optimistic about the economy, based on the Business Roundtable’s quarterly outlook index, which rose to 84.3 in the second quarter, the highest in a year.

Spending on information technology is up 4 percent this year compared with 2 percent last year, according to the median in asurvey of 203 businesses by Computer Economics, a research company in Irvine, California.

…Such increases are set to bolster the U.S. expansion between now and year-end as companies unleash cash from their record-high balance sheets amid a brighter economic outlook. Job gains that beat expectations in June have helped firm market projections of a September start for the Federal Reserve to begin reducing its unprecedented $85 billion in monthly asset purchases, indicating confidence that growth is sustainable without record levels of monetary stimulus.

This is exactly what Market Monetarists said would happen if the Federal Reserve eased monetary policy within a rule based framework. This in my view is a pretty clear demonstration of how the monetary transmission mechanism works.

This is how I in 2011 explained it would work:

Lets assume that the economy is in “bad equilibrium”. For some reason money velocity has collapsed, which continues to put downward pressures on inflation and growth and therefore on NGDP. Then enters a new credible central bank governor and he announces the following:

“I will ensure that a “good equilibrium” is re-established. That means that I will ‘print’ whatever amount of money is needed so to make up for the drop in velocity we have seen. I will not stop the expansion of the money base before market participants again forecasts nominal GDP to have returned to it’s old trend path. Thereafter I will conduct monetary policy in such a fashion so NGDP is maintained on a 5% growth path.”

Lets assume that this new central bank governor is credible and market participants believe him. Lets call him Ben Volcker.

By issuing this statement the credible Ben Volcker will likely set in motion the following process:

1) Consumers who have been hoarding cash because they where expecting no and very slow growth in the nominal income will immediately reduce there holding of cash and increase private consumption.
2) Companies that have been hoarding cash will start investing – there is no reason to hoard cash when the economy will be growing again.
3) Banks will realise that there is no reason to continue aggressive deleveraging and they will expect much better returns on lending out money to companies and households. It certainly no longer will be paying off to put money into reserves with the central bank. Lending growth will accelerate as the “money multiplier” increases sharply.
4) Investors in the stock market knows that in the long run stock prices track nominal GDP so a promise of a sharp increase in NGDP will make stocks much more attractive. Furthermore, with a 5% path growth rule for NGDP investors will expect a much less volatile earnings and dividend flow from companies. That will reduce the “risk premium” on equities, which further will push up stock prices. With higher stock prices companies will invest more and consumers will consume more.

I think that is exactly what is now happening in the US economy. The fed’s de facto announcement back in September last year of the Bernanke-Evans rule is moving the US economy from a “bad equilibrium” to a “good equilibrium”.

Hence, it is not only in the increase in the money base, which is lifting the US economy out of the crisis, but also a marked shift in expectations among US investors and consumers. It is the Chuck Norris effect. At least that is what the survey mentioned above indicates.

Furthermore, this is a clear demonstration of the Sumner Critique – the fiscal multiplier will be zero if the fed follows a clear nominal target. Hence, any fiscal tightening will be offset by monetary easing and/or expected monetary easing. So while fiscal policy contracts investments and private consumption is expanding.

I am still puzzled that it took the fed four years to figure this out and I should say that the Chuck Norris effect could have been much more powerful had the Federal Reserve been a lot more clear about its objectives. Now investors and consumers are still to a large extent guessing what the fed is targeting. Had the fed announced an NGDP level target then I am sure we would have seen an even stronger recovery in US capital spending.

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by Lars Christensen on July 16, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Federal Reserve, Sumner Critique, Transmission mechanism
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Posted by Lars Christensen on July 16, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/07/16/us-capital-spending-and-a-lesson-in-the-monetary-transmission-mechanism/

This is why we need an NGDP futures market

Until recently the global financial markets were on an one-way trip to recovery. Basically since the Federal Reserve in September implicitly announced the Bernanke-Evans rule investors have been betting on an US economic recovery – higher real and nominal GDP growth – and the Bank of Japan’s decisive actions to implement a 2% inflation target also have helped the sentiment. However, the picture has become a lot more confusing in recent weeks as turmoil has returned to the global financial markets.

The key problem is that we do not exactly know why there has been a sharp spike in market volatility. There is a number of competing theories. The most popular theory is that this is all Ben Bernanke’s fault as he has announced the “tapering” of quantitative easing – that according to the critiques has caused markets to price in tighter monetary conditions in the future and that is the reason why bond yields are rising while inflation expectations and stock markets are declining. A competing theory is that the real reason for this is not really Bernanke, but rather monetary tightening in China, which is forcing Chinese investors to liquidate investments – including in US Treasuries. I have a lot of sympathy for the later theory even though I think it is also right that Bernanke’s comments over the past months have been having an negative impact.

So why is it important what is the cause of these market moves? It’s it enough to note that all indications are that we globally are now seeing a contraction in aggregate demand and central banks should respond to that by easing monetary conditions? Yes and no. Yes because it is clear that monetary conditions are indeed getting tighter everywhere. However, no because that was not necessarily clear until last week.

Low inflation expectations is necessarily not a monetary easing

Interestingly enough it seems like everybody have become Market Monetarists recently in the sense that they think that it is the fed that is driving the markets via (bad) communication and the commentators are exactly looking at market indicators monetary conditions – for example market expectations for inflation.

And it is of course the sharp drop in inflation expectations, which is causing a lot of concern and I obviously agree that central banks should keep an very close eye on inflation expectations as an indicator for monetary conditions. HOWEVER, we should never forget that inflation expectations could drop either because of tighter monetary conditions or because of a positive supply shock.

Market Monetarists of course argue that central banks should not respond to supply shocks – positive or negative – and I would in fact argue that the drop in inflation expectations we have seen recently in the US (and other places) is to a large extent driven by a positive supply shock. That is good news for  real GDP growth. That is consistent with higher real bond yields and it not necessarily a problem (David Beckworth has been making that argument here). Hence, if the drop in inflation expectations had instead been primarily caused by tighter US monetary conditions then we should have expected to see the US stock markets plummet and the dollar should have strengthened.

That is of course what we have seen over the past week or so, but not in the month leading up to that. In that period the dollar was actually weakening moderately and the US stock market was holding up fairly well. That to me is an indication that the drop in inflation expectations have not only been about tighter US monetary condition.

Instead I think that we have seen a serious tightening of Chinese monetary condition and that has caused global commodity prices to drop. That is of course a negative demand shock in China, but it is a positive supply shock to the US economy. If that ONLY had been the case then it would be hard to the argument from a Market Monetarist perspective that the Federal Reserve should move to ease monetary conditions further. See my arguments from mid-May against monetary easing in responds to positive supply shocks here.

Avoid the confusion – set up an NGDP futures market

Sometimes it is pretty easy to “read” the markets to get an understanding of what is going on – it is for example pretty clear right now that Chinese monetary conditions are getting a lot tighter, but it is harder to say how much tighter US monetary conditions really have gotten over the past month or so and the bond market is certainly not a good indicator on its own (liquidity/flow effects vs expectational effects).

Hence, what should be the appropriate US monetary response? There is a significant difference between the appropriate respond to what is primarily a supply shock and what is primarily a demand shock. And it is of course not only me who is slightly confused about what is going on in the markets. Policy makers are likely to be at least as confused (likely a lot more…).

The best way to avoid any confusion is of course to set-up a market for exactly what the central bank is targeting. Hence, for an inflation targeting central bank there is of course inflation-linked bonds. However, that is not really a good guide for monetary policy if you want to avoid responding to supply shocks. Instead what we really need is NGDP-linked bonds. In the case of the US the US Treasury therefore should issue such bonds.

Had we had an US NGDP-linked bond now it would be very easy to see whether or not the markets where indeed pricing in tighter US monetary conditions and whether or not this should be a cause for concern. Furthermore, that would get us away from the constant discussion about whether higher bond yields is an indication of tighter or easier monetary conditions (it can in fact be both).

And finally if the there was an US NGDP-linked government bond then the fed could leave the time of “tapering” complete to the markets (See more on that here).

HT Cthorm

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PS Scott Sumner and Evan Soltas have similar discussions

6 Comments
by Lars Christensen on June 25, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Ben Bernanke, China, Federal Reserve, PBoC, Tapering
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Posted by Lars Christensen on June 25, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/06/25/this-is-why-we-need-an-ngdp-futures-market/

Chinese monetary policy failure

“Fed tapering” seems to be repeated in every single story in the financial media over the last couple of days. However, I am afraid that the financial media – as often is the case – is overly US centric. We might want to look at another central bank than the Fed. We should instead pay some (a lot!) of attention to the People’s Bank of China (PBoC).

This is from CNBC:

“China’s central bank continued to test the resilience of local lenders to withstand a cash crunch on Thursday, as money market rates soared once again and short-term rates hit record highs.

The seven-day repo rate, which is seen as gauge of confidence to lend in the interbank market, rose to a record high above 10 percent. China’s overnight repo rate jumped to as high as 30 percent, analysts said.

Chinese money markets have suffered a severe liquidity strain in the past week, due to seasonal factors and a sharp slowdown in foreign exchange inflows, raising concerns about the financial risks facing the world’s second largest economy.

But to the surprise of many market participants, the central bank has held back from pumping cash into the market to ease the credit squeeze and analysts said a spike in the rates at which banks lend money to each other was also a concern. “

I can’t help thinking that we have seen this before. The fed and ECB actions in 2008 come to mind.

This is what I said in my post “Dangerous bubbles fears” in October last year:

“…the PBoC eased monetary policy aggressively in 2009 and that pulled the Chinese economy out of the crisis very fast, but since 2010 the PBoC obviously has become fearful that it had created a bubble – which is probably did. To me Chinese monetary policy probably became excessively easy in early 2010 so it was right to scale back on monetary easing, but money supply growth has slowed very dramatically in the last two years and monetary policy now seem to have become excessively tight.”

It seems to me that the PBoC is just continuing the excessive tightening and that seems to be the real culprit behind the stream of bad economic data we have got out of China recently. It looks like Chinese monetary policy failure.

So yes, Bernanke might have a communication problem, but at the moment it seems like the biggest monetary policy failure is Chinese rather than American.

PS it seems like the Bank of Japan is regaining some credibility – the Nikkei has been remarkably resilient in recent days.

7 Comments
by Lars Christensen on June 21, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bank of Japan, Federal Reserve, PBoC
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Posted by Lars Christensen on June 21, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/06/21/chinese-monetary-policy-failure/

Confused central banks and the need for an autopilot

For somewhat more than a decade I have regularly been watching monetary policy decisions from different central banks around the world. Most ‘modern’ central banks in the world announce changes to monetary policy once every month. Mostly these events are pretty much none-events – the central banks do not surprise markets much. However, over the last fives years it has certainly been harder to predict the outcome of these meetings compared to how relatively easy it was in the decade before the crisis.

The reason it has become harder to predict central banks is that we are no longer on ‘autopilot’ in monetary policy. One we are unsure about ‘where we are going’ – the central banks’ monetary targets have become less clear – and in some case the target has even changed. Second, especially central banks where interest rates have dropped to close to zero are unsure about what instruments to use in the conduct of monetary policy.

This uncertainty has created more volatility in financial markets as the markets have a very hard time “reading” the central banks. The monetary policy decision from the Bank of Japan this morning is instructive.

Yesterday the Nikkei was up around 5%, but this morning the market has been slightly nervous ahead of the monetary policy announcement. However, after the announcement Nikkei initially dropped 1.5% on ‘disappointment’ (as it is said in the financial media) that the Bank of Japan did not introduce new measure to curb ‘bond market volatility’.

This is really rather bizarre. Central banks really shouldn’t run around and announce new initiatives and new monetary policy instruments every other month. Unfortunately we look at the major central banks such as the Federal Reserve, the ECB and Bank of England these banks over the past five years again and again have introduced new policy instruments. A lot of these instruments have not even been aimed at changing monetary conditions (changing the money base and/or expectations of future changes to the money base), but have been credit policies.

Ideally central banks should not even need to hold these monthly monetary policy meetings. If the central bank clearly defines its monetary policy target and define what primary instrument it is using to change monetary conditions then monetary policy to a large extent would be on autopilot. 

Try to target one target and no more than that

First of all the central banks of the world should make it complete clear what they are trying to achieve. What is the central bank targeting?

Second, the central banks should make it clear that it is targeting future value rather than present value of these variables – be it inflation, the price level or nominal GDP. Therefore, central banks should communicate about the expectation for these targets.

For inflation targeting central banks like the Bank of Japan the central bank is lucky has it actually have market expectations for future inflation. Hence, there is no reason for the Bank of Japan to even comment on present inflation. The only thing, which is important, is market expectations. If market expectations for future Japanese inflation is below the BoJ’s 2% inflation target then the BoJ will have to conclude that monetary conditions still are too tight. It can of course easily do something about that – it can just announce that it will continue to escalate the growth of the money base until the market is pricing in 2% future inflation. Remember there are no limits to the central bank’s ability to print money. The term that the central bank should keep the powder dry therefore is also idiotic. The central bank will never run out of gun powder.

Third, central banks should stop confusing themselves and the markets by pursuing more than one target. Essentially the central bank only has one monetary policy instrument – and that is the money base. Hence, the central bank can only hit one nominal target. One would think that this should be obvious, but unfortunately it is not.

Lets take the example of the Polish central bank (NBP). Last week the NBP cut its key policy interest rates by 25bp – effectively trying to boost the growth of the money base. Within days after that decision the same Polish central bank intervened in the currency market to strengthen the zloty. Hence, the NBP was selling foreign currency and buying zloty. Said, in another way the NBP tried to reduce the money base. Are you confused? It seems like the NBP is.

Unfortunately the NBP is not the only central bank in the world, which is confused about its own policies. The recent increased volatility in the Japanese markets is exactly a result of a similar kind of policy maker confusion.  In April the BoJ moved decisively to ease monetary policy. This was seen as a credible and permanent expansion of the money base. Not surprisingly this sparked a rally in the Japanese stock market, weakened the yen and have push up nominal bond yields. Market Monetarists were not surprised. Higher bond yields reflect higher growth and inflation expectations.

However, the BoJ seems to have been surprised by the impact of its own actions – particularly the increase in bond yields have made policy makers nervous. This led both BoJ and government officials to make unclear statements about the connection between bond yields and monetary policy. However, it is clear that if the BoJ in somewhat tries to target the level of bond yields it cannot also target inflation.

A similar problematic tendency of central bankers these days is an aversion against using certain policy instruments. Hence, central bankers have a preference to conduct monetary policy through interest rate changes. However, if the interest rate is close to zero then other instruments have to be used – for example directly expanding the money base.

However, it is very clear that for example a lot of Federal Reserve officials can’t wait to reduce the US money base. Logically that obviously makes no sense as it basically mean that the policy instrument enters on both the left-hand and the right-hand side of the central bank’s reaction function. The fed should obviously not reduce the money base before it is clear that it will hit its – not too well-defined – target.

The textbook advice to central banks therefore must be to target one nominal variable and target the market expectation of the future value of this variable.

Let the markets be the autopilot for monetary policy  

If the central bank formulates its target in the form of expectations then it is really very simple to introduce an autopilot monetary policy.

Again lets take the example of the Bank of Japan. The BoJ is now officially targeting inflation at 2%. It wants to achieve that target in two-years.

The market obviously provides a measure of how likely the BoJ is to meet this target in the form of breakeven inflation expectations from inflation-linked Japanese government bonds. The verdict from the market is clear – while inflation expectations have risen significantly the market is still far from pricing in 2% inflation.

In fact 2-year/2-year inflation expectations – that is the market expectations for inflation two years from now and two years ahead – is closer to 1% than to 2%.

So while the BoJ has credibly eased monetary policy its inflation target is still far from credible.

The easiest way to make that target credible is simply to announce that market expectations for Japanese inflation should be 2%. Or as I have suggested before the BoJ should simply ‘peg’ the inflation expectation to 2%. It should announce that if inflation expectations are below 2% when the BoJ will simply buy inflation linked bonds until inflation expectations hit 2% and similarly of course sell inflation-linked bonds if inflation expectations move above 2%.

In that scenario Japanese monetary policy would be completely on autopilot. The BoJ would not have to confuse itself and markets by introducing instruments every months or by giving cryptic statements about the state of the Japanese economy.

The BoJ could simply monthly report on the markets’ inflation expectations. If that BoJ did that then this months’ monetary policy statement would look something like this:

“The Bank of Japan is targeting 2% inflation. Market expectations for inflation on all relevant time horizons shows that inflation expectations have increased over the past year. Unfortunately inflation expectations are still significantly below 2% and as such the 2% inflation target is no yet fully credible.

However, the Bank of Japan has the full control of the Japanese monetary base and is ready to expand the money base as much as needed to bring inflation expectations fully in line with the inflation target. Hence, the Bank of Japan will continue to step up the buying of inflation-linked government bonds until there is full correspondence between the inflation target and market expectations.”

If I were a market participant that read that statement I would start buying inflation-linked bond immediately – and I would sell the yen and buy some more Japanese equities. And I am sure we very fast would see the market price in 2% inflation. Mission accomplished.

And once inflation expectations have been ‘pegged’ to 2% the BoJ could simply put the following text on it website: “Bank of Japan targets 2% inflation. Inflation expectations are at 2%. Monetary policy is 100% credible. We have gone golfing”.

I am writing this on a flight to Brussels (so I am not on the internet) while BoJ governor Kuroda is having a press conference. I very much hope he will be saying something similar to what I have suggested, but I am not overly optimistic.  

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Update: A quick glance through Kuroda’s comments indicates that he doesn’t really get it. He talks about controlling bond market volatility and makes some but not too impressive comments on breakeven inflation rates. It is sending stock markets down around the world. (By the way if Japanese monetary easing is part of an evil ‘currency war’ why are global stock markets falling when the BoJ fails to deliver?) 

7 Comments
by Lars Christensen on June 11, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bank of Japan, Federal Reserve, Haruhiko Kuroda, NBP
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Posted by Lars Christensen on June 11, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/06/11/confused-central-banks-and-the-need-for-an-autopilot/

Leave it to the market to decide on “tapering”

The rally in the global stock markets has clearly run into trouble in the last couple of weeks. Particularly the Nikkei has taken a beating, but also the US stock market has been under some pressure.

If one follows the financial media on a daily basis it is very clear that there is basically only one reason being mentioned for the decline in global stock markets – the possible scaling back of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing.

This is three example from the past 24 hours. First CNBC:

“Stocks posted sharp declines across the board Wednesday, with the Dow ending below 15,000, following weakness in overseas markets and amid concerns over when the Fed will start tapering its bond-buying program on the heels of several mixed economic reports.”

And this is from Bloomberg:

“U.S. stocks fell, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to a one-month low, as jobs and factory data missed estimates and investors speculated whether the Federal Reserve will taper bond purchases.”

And finally Barron’s:

“Fear that the central bank may start scaling back its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases has helped trigger a sharp increase in market volatility over the last couple of weeks both here and overseas.”

I believe that what we are seeing in the financial markets right now is telling us a lot about how the monetary transmission mechanism works. Market Monetarists say that money matters and markets matter. The point is that the markets are telling us a lot about the expectations for future monetary policy. This is of course also why Scott Sumner likes to say that monetary policy works with long and variable LEADS.

Hence, what we are seeing now is that US monetary conditions are being tightened even before the fed has scaled back asset purchases. What is at work is the Chuck Norris effect. It is the threat of “tapering” that causes US stock markets to decline. Said in another way Ben Bernanke has over the past two weeks effectively tightened monetary conditions. I am not sure that that was Bernanke’s intension, but that has nonetheless been the consequence of his (badly timed) communication.

This is also telling us that Market Monetarists are right when we say that both interest rates and money supply data are unreliable indicators of monetary conditions – at least when they are used on their own. Market indicators are much better indicators of monetary conditions.

Hence, when the US stock market drops, the dollar strengthens and implied market expectations of inflation decline it is a very clear signal that US monetary conditions are becoming tighter. And this is of course exactly what have happened over the last couple of weeks – ever since Bernanke started to talk about “tapering”. The Bernanke triggered the tightening, but the markets are implementing the tigthening.

Leave it to the market to decide when the we should have “tapering”

I think it is pretty fair to say that Market Monetarists are not happy about what we are seeing playing out at the moment in the US markets or the global markets for that matter. The reason is that we are now effectively getting monetary tightening. This is certainly premature monetary tightening – unemployment is still significantly above the fed’s unofficial 6.5% “target”, inflation is well-below the fed’s other unofficial target – 2% inflation – and NGDP growth and the level NGDP is massively below where we would like to see it.

It is therefore hardly the market’s perception of where the economy is relative to the fed’s targets that now leads markets to price in monetary tightening, but rather it is Bernanke’s message of possible “tapering” of assets purchases, which has caused the market reaction.

This I believe this very well illustrates three problems with the way the fed conducts monetary policy.

First of all, there is considerable uncertainty about what the fed is actually trying to target. We have an general idea that the fed probably in some form is following an Evans rule – wanting to continue to expand the money base at a given speed as long as US unemployment is above 6.5% and PCE core inflation is below 3%. But we are certainly not sure about that as the fed has never directly formulated its target.

Second, it is clear that the fed has a clear instrument preference – the fed is uncomfortable with conducting monetary policy by changing the growth rate of the money base and would prefer to return to a world where the primary monetary policy instrument is the fed funds target rate. This means that the fed is tempted to start “tapering” even before we are certain that the fed will succeed in hitting its target(s). Said, in another way the monetary policy instrument is both on the left hand and the right hand side of the fed’s reaction function. By the way this is exactly what Brad DeLong has suggested is the case. Brad at the same time argues that that means that the fiscal multiplier is positive. See my discussion of that here.

Third the fed’s policy remains extremely discretionary rather than being rule based. Hence, Bernanke’s sudden talk of “tapering” was a major surprise to the financial markets. This would not have been the case had the fed formulated a clear nominal target and explained its “reaction function” to markets.

Market Montarists of course has the solution to these problems. First of all the fed should clearly formulate a clear nominal target. We obviously would prefer an NGDP level target, but nearly any nominal target – inflation targeting, price level targeting or NGDP growth targeting – would be preferable to the present “target uncertainty”.

Second, the fed should leave it to the market to decide on when monetary policy should be tightened (or eased) and leave it to the market to actually implement monetary policy. In the “perfect world” the fed would target a given price for an NGDP-linked bond so the implied market expectation for future NGDP was in line with the targeted level of NGDP.

Less can, however, do it – the fed could simply leave forecasting to either the markets (policy futures and other forms of prediction markets) or it could conduct surveys of professional forecasters and make it clear that it will target these forecasts. This is Lars E. O. Svensson’s suggestion for “targeting the forecast” (with a Market Monetarist twist).

Concluding, the heightened volatility we have seen in the US stocks markets over the last two weeks is mostly the result of monetary policy failure – a failure to formulate a clear target, a failure to be clear on the policy instrument and a failure of making it clear how to implement monetary policy.

Bernanke don’t have to order the printing of more money. We don’t need more or less QE. What is needed is that Bernanke finally tells us what he is really targeting and then he should leave it to the market to implement monetary policy to hit that target.

PS I could have addressed this post to Bank of Japan and governor Kuroda as well. Kuroda is struggling with similar troubles as Bernanke. But he could start out by reading these two posts: “Mr. Kuroda please ‘peg’ inflation expectations to 2% now” and “A few words that would help Kuroda hit his target”. Kuroda should also take a look at what Marcus Nunes has to say.

10 Comments
by Lars Christensen on June 6, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bank of Japan, Ben Bernanke, Brad DeLong, Chuck Norris Effect, Federal Reserve, Policy futures, Prediction markets, Tapering
Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on June 6, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/06/06/leave-it-to-the-market-to-decide-on-tapering/

When US 30-year yields hit 5% the Great Recession will be over

US bond yields are spiking today. You might expect me to celebrate it and say this is great (while everybody else are freaking out…) Well, you are right – it doesn’t worry me the least bit.

That said, the US story is not necessarily the same story as the Japanese story. Hence, while Japanese real yields actually have declined sharply US real yields continue to rise as break-even inflation in the US has actually declined recently – most likely on the back of a positive supply shock due to lower commodity prices.

But obviously higher real yields should only be a worry if it is out sync with the development in the economy – as in 2008-9 when real yields and rates spiked, while at the same time the economy collapsed. However, if the economy is in recovery it is only naturally that real yields and rates start to rise as the recovery matures as it certainly seems to be the case in the US.

Anyway, this is not really what I wanted to discuss. Instead I was reminded about something Greenspan said in 1992:

“Let me put it to you this way. If you ask whether we are confirming our view to contain the success that we’ve had to date on inflation, the answer is “yes.” I think that policy is implicit among the members of this Committee, and the specific instruments that we may be using or not using are really a quite secondary question. As I read it, there is no debate within this Committee to abandon our view that a non-inflationary environment is best for this country over the longer term. Everything else, once we’ve said that, becomes technical questions. I would say in that context that on the basis of the studies, we have seen that to drive nominal GDP, let’s assume at 4-1/2 percent, in our old philosophy we would have said that [requires] a 4-1/2 percent growth in M2. In today’s analysis, we would say it’s significantly less than that. I’m basically arguing that we are really in a sense using [unintelligible] a nominal GDP goal of which the money supply relationships are technical mechanisms to achieve that. And I don’t see any change in our view…and we will know they are convinced (about “price stability”) when we see the 30-year Treasury at 5-1/2 percent.“

Yes, that is correct. Greenspan was thinking that the Federal Reserve should (or actually did) target NGDP growth of 4.5%. Furthermore, he (indirectly) said that that would correspond to 30-year US Treasury yields being around 5.5%.

This is more or less also what we had all through the Great Moderation – or rather both 5% 30-year yields and 5% NGDP growth. However, the story is different today. While, NGDP growth expectations for the next 1-2 years are around 4-5% (ish) 30-year bond yields are around 3.3%. This in my view is a pretty good illustration that while the US economy is in recovery market participants remain very doubtful that we are about to return to a New Great Moderation of stable 5% NGDP growth.

That said, with yields continuing to rise faster than the acceleration in NGDP growth we can say that we are seeing a gradual return to something more like the Great Moderation. That obviously is great news.

In fact I would argue that when US 30-year hopefully again soon hit 5% then I think that we at that time will have to conclude that the Great Recession finally has come to an end. Last time US 30-year yields were at 5% was in the last year of the Great Moderation – 2007.

We are still very far away from 5% yields, but we are getting closer than we have been for a very long time – thanks to the fed’s change of policy regime in September last year.

Finally, when US 30-year bond yields hit 5% I will stop calling for US monetary easing. I will, however, not stop calling for a proper transparent and rule-based NGDP level targeting regime before we get that.

8 Comments
by Lars Christensen on May 28, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve, The Great Moderation, The Great Recession
Tagged , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on May 28, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/05/28/when-us-30-year-yields-hit-5-the-great-recession-will-be-over/

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.

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

Posted by Lars Christensen on May 24, 2013

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

Lower (supply) inflation is NOT a reason to ease US monetary policy

Here are two news stories from today:

“U.S. import prices fell in April due to a drop in oil costs, a positive sign for household finances that also pointed to benign inflation pressures.

Import prices slipped 0.5 percent last month, the biggest decline since December, the Labor Department said on Tuesday. March’s data was revised to show a 0.2 percent decline instead of the previously reported 0.5 percent drop.”

And the second one:

“U.S. producer prices recorded their largest drop in three years in April while a reading of manufacturing in New York indicated contraction.

Producer prices slid as gasoline and food costs tumbled, pointing to weak inflation pressures that should give the Federal Reserve latitude to keep monetary policy very accommodative.”

Now some might of course think that this would make Market Monetarists scream for the Federal Reserve to step up monetary easing. However, that would be extremely wrong. There are certainly good reasons for the fed to ease monetary policy, but a drop in inflation caused by a positive supply shock – lower import prices – is certainly not one of them.

At the core of Market Monetarist thinking is that central banks should not react to supply shock – positive or negative. Hence, we are arguing that central banks should target the level of nominal GDP – not inflation.

Therefore, imagine that the fed indeed was targeting the the NGDP level and NGDP was “on track” and a positive supply shock hit. Then the fed would maintain monetary conditions completely unchanged – keeping NGDP on track – and allowed the positive supply shock to feed through to lower inflation (and higher real GDP). This is benign inflation and as such very welcomed as it do not reflect a deflationary and recessionary demand shock. Furthermore, some Market Monetarists like David Beckworth and myself also believe that monetary easing in response to positive supply shocks risks leading to economic misallocation and what Austrian economists call relative inflation.

Lower (supply) inflation is no reason for more QE
…but the fed needs to focus on defining its target

One can certainly argue that NGDP growth is too weak to catch up with the pre-crisis NGDP trend, but on the other hand it is also pretty clear that US NGDP growth is fairly robust. So instead of stepping up quantitative easing in response to lower import prices the fed instead should focus on becoming much more clear on what it wants to achieve. Hence, there is still considerable uncertainty about what the fed really wants to achieve.

Therefore, the fed should become more clear on its target. Preferably of course the fed should adopt an NGDP level target and decide whether the present growth rate of the money base is strong enough to achieve that or not. Regarding that I don’t think that the present policy with a not clearly defined target and the present growth rate of the money base is enough to return NGDP to the pre-crisis trend, but it is nonetheless likely to keep NGDP growing 4-5% and that is likely enough to maintain the present speed of recovery in real GDP and the US labour market. I think that is far too unambitious, but it is certainly better than what we are seeing in Europe.

The paradox – the positive supply shock is “pushing” central banks to do the right thing for the wrong reasons

The paradox, however, is that the recent drop in global commodity prices have pushed down headline inflation around the world and central banks have over the last couple of weeks been responding by cutting interest rates. Hence, Central banks in the eurozone, India, Australia, South Korea, Poland and Israel have all cut rates in recent weeks. While there certainly is very good reasons for monetary easing in nearly all of these countries it a paradox that these central banks now seem to have been “shocked” into easing monetary policy in response to a positive supply shock rather than in response to weak demand growth.

It would clearly be wrong to criticize these central banks for doing the right thing – easing monetary policy – but I also believe that it is important to stress that had monetary policy in these countries been “right” then these central banks would likely have been making a policy mistakes by easing monetary policy at the moment.

In that regard it is of course also important that central banks’ (apparent mental) inability to differentiate between supply and demand shocks often has lead central banks to tight monetary policy in response to negative supply. The ECB’s catastrophic rate hikes in 2011 is a very good example of this. Paradoxically we might be happy at the moment that the ECB’s tendency to react to supply shocks might push the ECB into stepping up monetary easing.

Finally I should stress that the recent decline in inflation globally is certainly not only caused by a positive supply. In fact I have long argued that we are likely heading for deflation in the euro zone due to excessively tight monetary policy. So my discussion above should mostly be seen as an attempt to stress the need for understanding the difference between demand and supply for the conduct of monetary policy. Unfortunately many central bankers seem unable to understand these important difference.

—-

Update: Market Monetarists think alike – I just realized that Marcus Nunes did a post yesterday that made the exact same argument as me.

9 Comments
by Lars Christensen on May 15, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Deflation, ECB, Federal Reserve, Supply shock
Tagged , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on May 15, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/05/15/lower-supply-inflation-is-not-a-reason-to-ease-us-monetary-policy/

Chuck Norris beats Wolfgang Schäuble

So far it is has been a remarkable week in the global financial markets. The ’deposit grab’ in Cyprus undoubtedly has shocked international investors and confidence in the ability of euro zone policy makers has dropped to an all-time low.

Despite of the ‘Cyprus shock’ global stock markets continue to climb higher – yes, yes we have seen a little more volatility, but the overall picture is that of a continued global stock market rally. That is surely remarkable when one takes into account the scale of the policy blunder committed by the EU in Cyprus and the likely long-lasting damage done to the confidence in EU policy makers.

I therefore think it is fair to conclude that so far Chuck Norris has beaten German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. Or said, in another way the Chuck Norris effect has been at work all week and that has clearly been a key reason why we have not (yet?) seen global-wide or even European-wide contagion from the disaster in Cyprus.

Just to remind my readers – the Chuck Norris effect of course is the effect that monetary policy not only works through expanding the money base, but also through guiding expectations.

When I early this week expressed my worries (or rather mostly my anger) over the EU’s handling of the situation in Cyprus a fixed income trader who is a colleague of mine comforted me by saying “Lars, you have now for half a year been saying that the Fed and the Bank of Japan are more or less doing the right thing so shouldn’t we expect the Fed and BoJ to offset any shock from the euro zone?” (I am paraphrasing a little – after all we were talking on a trading floor)

The message from the trader was clear. Yes, the EU is making a mess of things, but with the Bernanke-Evans rule in place and the Bank of Japan’s newfound commitment to a 2% inflation target we should expect that any shock from the euro zone to the US and Japanese economies would be ‘offset’ by the Fed and the BoJ by stepping up quantitative easing.

The logic is basically is that if an European shock pushes up US unemployment up we should expect the Fed to do even more QE and if that same shock leads to a strengthening of the yen (that mostly happens when global risk aversion increases) then the BoJ would also do more QE to try to meet its 2% inflation target. Said in another way any increase in demand for US dollar and yen is likely to be met by an increase in the supply of dollars and yen. In that sense the money base is ‘elastic’ in a similar sense as it would be under NGDP targeting. It is less perfect, but it nonetheless seems to be working – at least for now.

The fact that markets now expect the supply of dollars and yens to be at least quasi-elastic in itself means that the markets are not starting to hoard dollars and yen despite the ‘Cyprus shock’. This is the Chuck Norris effect at work – the central banks doesn’t have to do anything else that to reaffirm their commitment to their targets. This is exactly what the Federal Reserve did yesterday and what the new governor of Bank of Japan Kuroda is expected to do later today at his first press conference.

So there is no doubt – Chuck Norris won the first round against Wolfgang Schäuble and other EU policy makers. Thank god for that.

 

2 Comments
by Lars Christensen on March 21, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bank of Japan, Ben Bernanke, Bernanke-Evans rule, Cyprus, euro crisis, Evans rule, Federal Reserve, Haruhiko Kuroda
Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on March 21, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/03/21/chuck-norris-beats-wolfgang-schauble/

The ultimate sign of recovery – no reason to freak out about higher bond yields

This is from CNBC.com:

U.S. Treasurys prices eased for a second day after jobless claims data suggested solid improvement in the labor market, while stocks’ gains undermined the appeal of lower-risk government debt.

The Treasury Department auctioned $13 billion of reopened 30-year bonds on Thursday at a high yield of 3.248 percent. The bid-to-cover ratio, an indicator of demand, was 2.43, the lowest level since August.

In the when-issued market, considered a proxy for where the bonds will price at auction, 30-year bonds were yielding about 3.24 percent. The auction followed solid demand in the sales of $21 billion of reopened 10-year notes on Wednesday and $32 billion of three-year notes on Tuesday.

US bond yields continue to inch higher. To me that is the ultimate sign that easier monetary conditions is pushing up nominal GDP (and very likely also real GDP).

But I am afraid that we will soon hear somebody warn us that higher bond yields will kill the recovery. But we of course know that when bond yields and equity prices are rising in parallel then it is normally a very good sign of higher aggregate demand and that is of course exactly what we need.

So if we avoid the biggest fallacy in economics and ask why bond yields are rising then we should find a lot of comfort in the fact that US stock prices are rising as well.

And finally there is some Keynesians out there that can explain to me why global stock prices continue to inch up, bond yields are rising and the US consumer seems completely unaffected despite of the fiscal cliff (I told you so!) and the sequester. Market Monetarists of course have an answer – it is monetary policy dominance – monetary policy can always offset any impact on aggregate demand from a fiscal shock. It is very simple – and is the positive spin on the Sumner Critique. (Here is a model textbook Keynesian should be able to understand).

PS yes you got it right – I am very optimistic both on the markets and on the recovery at least in the US (I have been optimistic for a while – see here and here). My only two fears are that the ECB once again will do something stupid or that we will have a repeat of the mistakes of 19367-37 – premature monetary tightening from the fed. Italian politics is, however, not keeping me awake at night.

Update: I wrote above my worry was the ECB. I should have said the EU/IMF. The terms for the EU/IMF bail out of Cyprus scare me quite a bit. So much for the rule of law…

16 Comments
by Lars Christensen on March 14, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bernanke-Evans rule, Federal Reserve, Fiscal cliff, Sumner Critique
Tagged , ,

Posted by Lars Christensen on March 14, 2013

https://marketmonetarist.com/2013/03/14/the-ultimate-sign-of-recovery-no-reason-to-freak-out-about-higher-bond-yields/

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