What the world must do to kickstart growth

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April 7, 2014

The post-crisis panic might be subsiding but medium-term prospects are problematic

The world’s finance ministers and central bank governors gather in Washington this week for the biannual International Monetary Fund meetings. While there will not be the sense of alarm that dominated the convocations in the years after the financial crisis, the unfortunate reality is that the medium-term prospects for the global economy have not been so problematic for a long time.

The IMF in its current World Economic Outlook essentially endorses the “secular stagnation” hypothesis, noting that the real interest rate necessary to bring about enough demand for full employment is likely to remain depressed for a substantial period. This is made manifest by the fact that inflation is well below target throughout the developed world and is likely to decline further this year. Without robust growth in, and greater demand from, these markets, growth in emerging economies is likely to subside. That is even without considering the political challenges facing countries as diverse as Brazil, China, South Africa, Russia and Turkey.

In the face of inadequate demand, the world’s primary strategy is easy money. Base interest rates remain at floor levels throughout the developed world and central banks signal that they are unlikely to rise soon. While the US is tapering quantitative easing, Japan continues to ease on a large scale, and the Eurozone seems to be moving closer to this. This is all better than the tight money that in the 1930s made the Depression the Great Depression. But it has problems as a growth strategy.

We do not have a strong basis for supposing that reductions in interest rates from very low levels have a big impact on spending decisions. Any spending they do induce tends to represent a pulling forward rather than an augmentation of demand. We do know they strongly encourage economic actors to take on debt; that they place pressure on return-seeking investors to take increased risk; that they inflate asset values and reward financial activity. And we cannot confidently predict the ultimate impact on markets or the confidence of investors of the unwinding of central bank balance sheets.

While monetary policies lower capital costs and so encourage spending that businesses and households judge unworthwhile even at rock-bottom interest rates, many elements of investment exist that can be increased and that also have high returns but are held back by misguided public policies.

In the US the case for substantial investment promotion is overwhelming. Increased infrastructure spending would reduce burdens on future generations, not just by spurring growth but also by expanding the economy’s capacity and reducing deferred maintenance obligations. For example: can it be rational in the 21st century for the US air traffic control system to rely on paper tracking of flight paths? Equally important, government could do much at no cost to promote private investment including authorizing oil and natural gas exports, bringing clarity to the future of corporate taxes, and moving forward on trade agreements that open up foreign markets.

Japan, with the increase in value added tax on April 1, is engaged in a major fiscal contraction at a time when it is far from clear whether last year’s progress in reversing deflation is durable or a reflection of one-off exchange rate movements. A return to stagnation and deflation could rapidly call its solvency into question. Japan takes a dangerous risk if it waits to observe the consequences before enacting fiscal and structural reform measures to promote spending.

Europe has moved back from the brink, with defaults or devaluations now remote as possibilities. But no strategy for durable growth is yet in place and the slide towards deflation continues. Strong actions to restore the banking system so that it can be a conduit for a robust flow of credit, as well as measures to promote demand in the countries of the periphery where competitiveness challenges remain, are imperative.

If emerging markets’ capital inflows fall off substantially, and so they move further towards being net exporters, it is hard to see where in the developed world can take up the slack by accepting trade balance deterioration. So measures to bolster capital flows and exports to emerging markets are essential. Most important are political steps to reassure about populist threats in a number of countries, such as where authoritarian governments give signs of disregarding contracts and property rights, and provide investor protection and backstop finance. In this regard passage by the US Congress of authorisation for the IMF to enhance its ability to provide backstop finance, is imperative.

Creative consideration should also be given to ways of mobilising the trillions of dollars in public assets held by central banks and sovereign wealth funds largely in the form of safe liquid assets to promote growth.

In a globalised economy, the impact of these steps taken together is likely to be substantially greater than the sum of their individual impacts. And the consequences of national policy failures are likely to cascade. That is why a global growth strategy framed to resist secular stagnation rather than just muddle through with the palliative of easy money should be this week’s agenda.

The writer is Charles W Eliot university professor at Harvard and a former US Treasury secretary

America Risks Becoming a Downton Abbey Economy

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February 16, 2014

Inequality will have to be addressed, with free markets playing a pivotal role

Inequality has emerged as a major issue in the US and beyond. A generation ago it could reasonably have been asserted that the overall growth rate of the economy was the main influence on the growth in middle-class incomes and progress in reducing poverty. This is no longer a plausible claim.

The share of income going to the top 1 per cent of earners has increased sharply. A rising share of output is going to profits. Real wages are stagnant. Family incomes have not risen as fast as productivity. The cumulative effect of all these developments is that the US may well be on the way to becoming a Downton Abbey economy. It is very likely that these issues will be with us long after the cyclical conditions have normalized and budget deficits have at last been addressed.

President Barack Obama is right to be concerned. Those who condemn him for “tearing down the wealthy” and engaging in un-American populism are, to put it politely, lacking in historical perspective. Presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Harry Truman railed against the excesses of a privileged few in finance and business. Some have gone beyond rhetoric. Confronted with rising steel prices, John Kennedy sent the FBI storming into corporate offices and is widely thought to have ordered the authorities to audit executives’ personal tax returns. Richard Nixon used the same weapon in 1973, announcing tax investigations “of the books of companies which raised their prices more than 1.5 per cent above the January ceiling.” All were reacting in their own way to a phenomenon that Bill Clinton has described best: “Although America’s rich got richer . . . the country did not . . . the stock market tripled but wages went down.”

Given the widespread frustration with stagnant incomes, and an increasing body of evidence suggesting that the worst-off have few opportunities to improve their lot, demands for action are hardly unreasonable. The challenge is knowing what to do.

If income could be redistributed without damping economic growth, there would be a compelling case for reducing incomes at the top and transferring the proceeds to those in the middle and at the bottom. Unfortunately this is not the case. It is easy to think of policies that would have reduced the earning power of Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg by making it more difficult to start and profit from a business. But it is much harder to see how such policies would raise the incomes of the rest of the population. Such policies would surely hurt them as consumers by depriving them of the fruits of technological progress.

It is certainly true that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of highly paid people in finance over the last generation. Recent studies reveal that most of the increase has resulted from an increase in the value of assets under management. (The percentage of assets that financiers take in fees has remained roughly constant.) Perhaps some policy could be found that would reduce these fees but the beneficiaries would be the owners of financial assets – a group that consists mainly of very wealthy people.

It is not enough to identify policies that reduce inequality. To be effective they must also raise the incomes of the middle class and the poor. Tax reform has a major role to play. The current tax code is so badly designed that it is very likely to be having the effect of reducing economic growth. It also allows the rich to shield a far greater proportion of their income from taxation than the poor. For example, last year’s increase in the stock market represented an increase in wealth of about $6tn, of which the lion’s share went to the very wealthy.

It is unlikely that the government will collect as much as 10 per cent of this figure. That is because of a host of policies that favour the rich, such as the capital gains exemption, the ability to defer tax on unrealized capital gains, and the fact that gains on assets passed on at death are not taxed at all. Similarly, the corporate tax system allows value to flow through it like a sieve. The ratio of corporate tax collections to the market value of US corporations is near a record low. The estate tax can be more or less avoided with sophisticated planning.

Closing loopholes that only the wealthy can enjoy would enable taxes to be cut elsewhere. Measures such as the earned income tax credit can raise the incomes of the poor and middle class by more than they cost the Treasury, because they give people incentives to work and save.

It is ironic that those who profess the most enthusiasm for market forces are least enthusiastic about curbing tax benefits for the wealthy. Sooner or later inequality will have to be addressed. Much better that it be done by letting free markets operate and then working to improve the result. Policies that aim instead to thwart market forces rarely work, and usually fall victim to the law of unintended consequences.

The writer is Charles W Eliot university professor at Harvard and a former US Treasury secretary

Washington must not settle for secular stagnation

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January 5, 2014

By Lawrence Summers

We may, as I argued last month in the Financial Times, be in a period of “secular stagnation” in which sluggish growth and output, and employment levels well below potential, might coincide for some time to come with problematically low real interest rates.

Since the start of this century, annual US gross domestic product growth has averaged less than 1.8 per cent. The economy is now operating nearly 10 per cent – or more than $1.6tn – below what was judged to be its potential as recently as 2007. And all this is in the face of negative real interest rates for terms of more than five years and extraordinarily easy monetary policy.

It is true that even some forecasters who have had the wisdom to remain pessimistic about growth prospects for the past few years are coming around to more optimistic views in 2014 – at least in the US. This is encouraging but should be qualified by the recognition that, even on optimistic forecasts, output and employment will remain well below previous trend for many years. More troubling, even with today’s high degree of slack in the economy, and with wage and price inflation slowing, there are signs of eroding credit standards and inflated asset values. If we were to enjoy years of healthy growth under anything like current credit conditions, there is every reason to expect we would return to the kind of problems we saw in 2005-07 long before output and employment returned to trend or inflation picked up again.

So the secular stagnation challenge is not just to achieve reasonable growth but to do so in a financially sustainable way. There are, essentially, three approaches.

The first would emphasise what is seen as the deep supply-side fundamentals – labour force skills, companies’ capacity for innovation, structural tax reform and assuring the long-run sustainability of entitlement programmes. All of this is appealing – if politically difficult – and would indeed make a great contribution to the economy’s health in the long run. But it is unlikely to do much in the next five to 10 years. Apart from obvious delays – it takes time for education to operate, for example – our economy is held back by lack of demand rather than lack of supply. Increasing our capacity to produce will not translate into increased output unless there is more demand for goods and services. Training programmes or reform of social insurance may, for instance, affect which workers find jobs but they will not affect how many find jobs. Indeed, measures that raise supply could have the perverse effect of magnifying deflationary pressure.

The second strategy, which has dominated US policy in recent years, is lowering relevant interest rates and capital costs as much as possible and relying on regulatory policies to assure financial stability. The economy is far healthier now than it would have been in the absence of these measures. But a strategy that relies on interest rates significantly below growth rates for long periods of time virtually guarantees the emergence of substantial bubbles and dangerous build-ups in leverage. The idea that regulation can allow the growth benefits of easy credit to come without the costs is a chimera. It is precisely the increases in asset values and increased ability to borrow that stimulate the economy that are the proper concern of prudential regulation.

The third approach – and the one that holds most promise – is a commitment to raising the level of demand at any given level of interest rates, through policies that restore a situation where reasonable growth and reasonable interest rates can coincide. This means ending the disastrous trend towards ever less government spending and employment each year – and taking advantage of the current period of economic slack to renew and build up our infrastructure. If the government had invested more over the past five years, our debt burden relative to our incomes would be lower: allowing slackening in the economy has hurt its potential in the long run.

Raising demand also means seeking to spur private spending. There is much that can be done in the energy sector to unleash private investment on both the fossil fuel and renewable sides. Regulation that requires the more rapid replacement of coal-fired power plants will increase investment and spur growth as well as helping the environment. And in a troubled global economy it is essential to ensure that a widening trade deficit does not excessively divert demand from the US economy.

Secular stagnation is not an inevitability. With the right policy choices, we can have both reasonable growth and financial stability. But, without a clear diagnosis of our problem and a commitment to structural increases in demand, we will be condemned to oscillating between inadequate growth and unsustainable finance. We can do better.

The writer is Charles W Eliot university professor at Harvard and a former US Treasury secretary

 

Why stagnation might prove to be the new normal

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By Lawrence Summers

December 15, 2013

In the past decade, before the crisis, bubbles and loose credit were only sufficient to drive moderate growth

Is it possible that the US and other major global economies might not return to full employment and strong growth without the help of unconventional policy support? I raised that notion – the old idea of “secular stagnation” – recently in a talk hosted by the International Monetary Fund.

My concern rests on a number of considerations. First, even though financial repair had largely taken place four years ago, recovery has only kept up with population growth and normal productivity growth in the US, and has been worse elsewhere in the industrial world.

Second, manifestly unsustainable bubbles and loosening of credit standards during the middle of the past decade, along with very easy money, were sufficient to drive only moderate economic growth.

Third, short-term interest rates are severely constrained by the zero lower bound: real rates may not be able to fall far enough to spur enough investment to lead to full employment.

Fourth, in such situations falling wages and prices or lower-than-expected are likely to worsen performance by encouraging consumers and investors to delay spending, and to redistribute income and wealth from high-spending debtors to low-spending creditors.

The implication of these thoughts is that the presumption that normal economic and policy conditions will return at some point cannot be maintained. Look at Japan, where gross domestic product today is less than two-thirds of what most observers predicted a generation ago, even though interest rates have been at zero for many years. It is worth emphasizing that Japanese GDP was less disappointing in the five years after the bubbles burst at the end of the 1980s than the US GDP has since 2008. In America today, GDP is more than 10 per cent below what was predicted before the financial crisis.

If secular stagnation concerns are relevant to our current economic situation, there are obviously profound policy implications. But before turning to policy, there are two central issues regarding the secular stagnation thesis that have to be addressed.

First, is not a growth acceleration in the works in the US and beyond? There are certainly grounds for optimism: note recent statistics, the strong stock markets and the end at last of sharp fiscal contraction. One should also recall that fears of secular stagnation were common at the end of the second world war and were proved wrong. Today, secular stagnation should be viewed as a contingency to be insured against – not a fate to which we ought to be resigned. Yet, it should be recalled that the achievement of escape velocity has been around the corner in consensus forecasts for several years and we have seen several false dawns – just as Japan did in the 1990s. More fundamentally, even if the economy accelerates next year, this provides no assurance that it is capable of sustained growth at normal real interest rates. Europe and Japan are forecast to have grown at levels well below the US. Across the industrial world, inflation is below target levels and shows no signs of picking up – suggesting a chronic demand shortfall.

Second, why should the economy not return to normal after the effects of the financial crisis are worked off? Is there a basis for believing that equilibrium real interest rates have declined? There are many a prior reasons why the level of spending at any given set of interest rates is likely to have declined. Investment demand may have been reduced due to slower growth of the labor force and perhaps slower productivity growth. Consumption may be lower due to a sharp increase in the share of income held by the very wealthy and the rising share of income accruing to capital. Risk aversion has risen as a consequence of the crisis and as saving – by both states and consumers – has risen. The crisis increased the costs of financial intermediation and left major debt overhangs. Declines in the cost of durable goods, especially those associated with information technology, mean that the same level of saving purchases more capital every year. Lower inflation means any interest rate translates into a higher after-tax rate than it did when inflation rates were higher; logic is supported by evidence. For many years now indexed bond yields have been on a downward trend. Indeed, US real rates are substantially negative at a five year horizon.

Some have suggested that a belief in secular stagnation implies the desirability of bubbles to support demand. This idea confuses prediction with recommendation. It is, of course, better to support demand by supporting productive investment or highly valued consumption than by artificially inflating bubbles. On the other hand, it is only rational to recognize that low interest rates raise asset values and drive investors to take greater risks, making bubbles more likely. So the risk of financial instability provides yet another reason why preempting structural stagnation is so profoundly important.

The writer is Charles W Eliot university professor at Harvard and a former US Treasury secretary

 

Give the Obamacare bug the correct treatment

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There is still time to follow the basic rules of project management

November 11, 2013

As the president has recognized, the failure on the part of his administration to deliver a functioning website that Americans can use to enroll in “Obamacare”, the Affordable Care Act, represents an inexcusable error. Having succeeded after more than a century of failed efforts in achieving the progressive dream goal of legislating universal health insurance in America, it is tragic to be falling short on the mundane task of allowing Americans to actually enroll in the healthcare exchanges.

Even if the goal of getting the health insurance exchanges working by November 30 is achieved, and this cannot be regarded by objective observers as a certainty, a shadow has been cast on the core competence of the federal government.

What should be learned from this episode? It is too soon to know with confidence but there are some preliminary judgments that we can make.

At a basic level the implications go to public management. The dismal track record of the implementing of large-scale information technology initiatives even in rigorous and focused corporate environments points to the difficulty. Unexpected obstacles always arise, deadlines are usually missed, and budgets usually over-run.

Maximizing the prospect of success requires providing for slack in the schedule and in the budget, structuring projects with very clear accountability and frequent checkpoints, and assigning responsibility for oversight not simply to general managers but to people with extensive IT experience.

Success requires trust but also verifying. A homeowner who hires a general contractor to build an extension to his house, discusses the specifications and then goes away for six months is usually unhappy with the result. The same is true for public managers who trust contractors to perform essential tasks but fail to rigorously oversee every step.

An additional requisite for success is steadiness and realism in the face of difficulty. Once a project gets off track there is an overwhelming temptation for everyone involved to circle the wagons and promise rapid repair so as to hold critics at bay. Yet the right response to such failures is to bring problems to the surface as rapidly as possible and to move deliberately and carefully rather than more quickly. The best football teams stick to their playbooks even when they appear to be losing. So also when projects fall behind, it is important to mobilize new resources and management but not to over-promise with respect to how soon and how good a fix will be possible.

One case of over-optimism will ultimately be forgotten and, or, forgiven. Repeated over-optimism should not, and will not, be excused.

These are old truths that those responsible for implementing the Affordable Care Act should surely have heeded. Yet fairness requires recognizing that there is an equally important and in some ways more fundamental factor behind the problems of implementing Obamacare – the systematic effort of President Barack Obama’s opponents to delegitimize and undermine the project.

Large-scale information technology projects in the private sector are hard enough even without an organized constituency for failure.

It is no exaggeration to say that it has been the prophecy and the hope of many of the opponents that the project will fail. They have been eager to seize on any problems, highlight any controversial judgments, and create an environment in which failure becomes the expectation.

It is hypocritical for those who held up the confirmations of key officials with responsibility for managing federal healthcare programs and whose behavior deterred many able people from coming into government to lash out at the incompetence of government management.

And it is indefensible to refuse to appropriate money to carry out a program and then attack it on the grounds that it is being under-resourced.

Many people regard it as an obligation when their country is at war – even a war they oppose – to support the troops. In the same way history will not judge kindly those who, having lost a political debate over policy, try to undermine programs when they are being enacted.

There is a danger here that goes far beyond delays in access to health insurance. The risk is a vicious cycle develops in which poor government performance leads on the one hand to overly bold promises of repair and on the other to reduced funding and support for those doing the work.

This then leads to unmet expectations and disappointment setting off the cycle once again. In the end, government loses the ability to deliver for citizens and citizens lose respect for government. Our democracy is the loser.

The writer is Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard and a former US Treasury secretary

 

US must do more than focus on deficit

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February 11, 2013

A broader, growth-centered agenda is needed to propel the economy

There should be little disagreement across the political spectrum that growth and job creation remain America’s most serious national challenge. Ahead of President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union speech of his second term, and further fiscal negotiations in Washington, the US needs to think again about its priorities for economic policy.

The US economy grew at a rate of 1.5 per cent in 2012. Last week, the independent Congressional Budget Office projected that growth will be only 1.4 per cent during 2013 – and that unemployment will rise. While the CBO says growth will accelerate in 2014 and beyond, it nonetheless predicts that unemployment will remain above 7 per cent until 2016.

A weak economy and limited job creation make growth in middle class incomes all but impossible, pressure budgets by restricting tax revenues, and threaten essential private and public investments in education and innovation. Worse, it undermines the American example at a dangerous time in the world.

We can do better. With strains from the financial crisis receding and huge investment opportunities in energy, housing and reshored manufacturing, the US has a moment of opportunity unlike any in a long time. The economy could soon enter a virtuous cycle of confidence, growth and deficit reduction, much as it did in the 1990s. But this will require moving the national economic debate beyond its near total preoccupation with federal budget restraint.

Yes, medium-term fiscal restraint is necessary to contain financial risks. But it is not sufficient. Unlike the 1990s, when reduced deficits stimulated investment by bringing down capital costs, fiscal restraint cannot be relied on to provide stimulus now when long-term US Treasuries yield below 2 per cent.

A broader, growth-centred agenda is needed to propel the economy to its “escape velocity”.

First, as the president has recognized, budget cuts implicit in the fiscal “sequester” scheduled to begin in March should be spread over time. The economy is already taking a significant hit from increases in payroll taxes. Further across-the-board and sudden slashing of military and civilian spending will hurt the economy – and do serious damage to military readiness.

Second, the president and Congress should fix a firm deadline of the end of this year to address the international aspects of corporate tax reform. We are now in the worst of all worlds with US companies having nearly $2tn in cash sitting abroad, because of tax burdens on bringing it home and the perception that relief may be on the way. Ideally, the international tax system should be reformed in a way that is revenue-neutral but increases the attractiveness of bringing foreign profits home. This would be accomplished by replacing the current high rate of tax levied only on repatriated profits with a much lower tax levied on all global profits. If this is not going to happen, this should be made clear so business does not keep planning for an amnesty that will not come.

Third, no American should be satisfied with the nation’s system of housing finance. After a period when cheap mortgages were too available, the pendulum has swung too far and lack of finance is holding the economy back. The clearest evidence of this is the growing number of lower- and middle-income families paying rents to the private equity firms that own their homes at rates such as 8 per cent of value – far above what a mortgage would cost.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored housing enterprises, have historically provided support to the mortgage market in difficult times. It is high time they were forced to step up to support would-be lenders.

Fourth, the transformation of the North American energy sector must be accelerated. This will have economic and environmental benefits. Those weighing the decision about whether to approve the Keystone pipeline, which would run between the tar sands of western Canada and Nebraska, must recognise that any Canadian oil not flowing to the US will probably flow to Asia, where it will be burnt with fewer environmental protections.

Natural gas exploitation, too, can bring huge environmental benefits. Replacing coal with natural gas has much more scope to cut greenhouse gas emissions than more fashionable efforts to promote renewables. A period of record low capital costs and high unemployment is the best possible time to accelerate the replacement cycle for environmentally untenable coal-fired power plants. More generally, both production of natural gas and its use in industry should be a substantial job creator for the US for years.

More items could be added to this list, including innovations in regulation and finance with respect to infrastructure investment. Unlike deficit reduction, where all the choices are painful, measures to spur growth can benefit all Americans as well as help the federal budget. Growth and job creation are, after all, the ultimate ends of economic policy. They, at least as much as fiscal issues, should become the focus of our national economic conversation.

The writer is Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard and a former US Treasury secretary

 

Building blocks for America’s recovery

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October 28, 2012

The final full week of the US presidential campaign will see both candidates intensely debate the future of economic policy. But despite the rhetoric about its means, most experts agree on its ends. First, re-establishing economic growth at a rate that makes real reductions in unemployment possible; second, placing the nation’s finances on a stable footing by putting in place measures to ensure that the nation’s sovereign debt is declining relative to its wealth; and third, renewing the economy’s foundation in a way that can support steady growth in middle-class incomes over the next generation as well as work for all those who want it.

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Where are the candidates on these three issues? Barack Obama has recognised the inadequacy of demand as the main barrier to growth and sought to bolster both public and private sector demand since becoming president. Recent work by the International Monetary Fund has confirmed the premise of his policies, namely that at a time when short-term interest rates are at zero, fiscal policies are especially potent as multipliers are larger than normal. The president has also respected the independence of the Federal Reserve as it has sought to respond creatively to the challenge of increasing demand. And he has put the economy on track to almost doubling exports over five years through a series of measures such as increasing government support for exporters. He has made clear his commitment to taking advantage of low interest rates to finance public investment and protect public sector jobs, to respect the independence of the Fed and to continue to promote exports.

Mitt Romney, in contrast, supports immediate efforts to sharply reduce government spending even as economic slack remains and Congress at the president’s behest has already legislated the most draconian cuts ever in domestic discretionary spending. Through some set of intellectual gymnastics he concludes that spending on new weapons systems by the government, or on luxury goods by the recipients of tax cuts, will create jobs but spending on fixing schools and highways do not. He also seems comfortable involving himself in monetary policy discussion on the side of reducing the supply of credit relative to current Fed policy. And his insistence that he will name China a currency manipulator on day one of his term even before his appointees have moved into their offices surely increases uncertainty by making a trade war possible.

President Obama has embraced the principles though not all the details embodied in the Simpson-Bowles commission report on budget deficits. Like the group of chief executives who made a major statement on deficit reduction last week he insists that achieving sustainable finances means both containing spending especially on entitlements and raising revenue. The budget he has put forward has been thoroughly audited by the Congressional Budget Office and puts the US debt to gross domestic product ratio on a declining path within this decade. And he has made clear that in talks with willing partners to conclude a deal, he is prepared to go beyond his budget proposals to ensure that debt accumulation is contained.

Mr Romney, meanwhile, has not suggested even a partial approach to the budget that has enough detail to be fully evaluated by independent experts. He has, however, insisted on the need for military spending of at least a trillion dollars more than recommended by Robert Gates, George W. Bush’s defence secretary, and for 20 per cent across the board tax cuts which independent estimates suggest would cost close to $5tn over the next decade. To offset these measures, he has spoken of “closing loopholes” without naming any specific items and in the face of repeated demonstrations that even the elimination of every tax benefit for those with incomes over $200,000 would raise far less than the totality of his proposals would cost.

From the Lewis and Clark expedition to the land grant colleges, to the transcontinental railway, to the interstate highway system, to the original research and development that led to the internet, the federal government led by either political party has always sought to lay a foundation for future prosperity. President Obama has continued this tradition while recognising the inevitability that in an uncertain world some investments will work out better than others. While audits have found many fewer problems with public investments than most expected over the past few years, much has been accomplished. Major efforts to measure and act on student achievement results are now in place in most states. Medical records are being systematically computerised. Domestic fossil fuels and renewable energy sources are meeting more and more of our energy needs. New financial protections are in place for consumers even as the capital reserves required of financial institutions have been substantially increased and student lending has been streamlined. These steps illustrate the kinds of progress that a second Obama administration would strive towards.

Mr Romney, on the other hand, has made clear a preference for using any available resources to reduce tax rates below their current level – in the hope that there are great investments companies are not already undertaking even in the face of sub 2 per cent interest rates and the lowest effective tax rates in generations. If this represents a foundation for prosperity it will be a very different one than America has enjoyed historically.

The writer is Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard and a former US Treasury secretary


The world is stuck in a vicious cycle

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October 14, 2012

If the global economy was in trouble before the annual World Bank and IMF meetings in Tokyo last week, it is hard to believe that it is now smooth sailing. Indeed, apart from the modest stimulus provided to the Japanese economy by all the official visitors and the wealthy financial sector hangers on, it is difficult to see what of immediate value was accomplished.

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The US still peers over a fiscal cliff, Europe staggers forward trying to prevent crises King Canute-style with no compelling growth strategy, and Japan remains stagnant and content if it can grow at all.

The Bric countries, meanwhile, are each unhappy stories in their own way. On the one hand, they are constrained by deep problems of corruption and financial imbalances that are impeding growth, while at the same time demographic trends cast doubt on their long-term prospects.

In much of the industrial world, what started as a financial problem is becoming a structural one. If growth in the US and Europe had been maintained at its average rate from 1990 to 2007, gross domestic product would have been between 10 and 15 per cent higher today and more than 15 per cent higher by 2015 on credible projections. Of course, this calculation may be misleading because global GDP in 2007 was inflated by the same factors that created financial bubbles. However, even if GDP was artificially inflated by 5 percentage points in 2007, output is still about $1tn short of what could have been expected in the US and EU. This works out to more than $12,000 for the average family.

It will be argued that the process of international economic co-operation is failing. It will be suggested that there have been failures of leadership on the part of the major actors. There will be calls for changes in the international economic architecture

There is some validity to this view. Domestic political constraints and imperatives do interfere with necessary actions in much of the world. US politics have been dysfunctional in the run-up to the 2012 election. The EU sometimes makes the US Congress look like a model of crisp efficiency in making decisions. In Russia and China, authoritarian leaders who lack legitimacy struggle to drive economic reform, but so do those with democratic mandates in India and Brazil.

Concern about politics and the processes of international co-operation is warranted but the best one can hope for from politics in any country is that it will drive rational responses to serious problems. If there is no consensus on the causes or solutions to serious problems, it is unreasonable to ask a political system to implement forceful actions in a sustained way. Unfortunately, this is to an important extent the case with respect to current economic difficulties, especially in the industrial world.

While there is agreement on the need for more growth and job creation in the short run and on containing the accumulation of debt in the long run, there are deep differences of opinion both within and across countries as to how this can be accomplished. What might be labelled the “orthodox view” attributes much of our current difficulty to excess borrowing by the public and private sectors, emphasizes the need to contain debt, puts a premium on credibly austere fiscal and monetary policies, and stresses the need for long-term structural measures rather than short-term demand-oriented steps to promote growth.

The alternative “demand support view” also recognizes the need to contain debt accumulation and avoid high inflation, but it pushes for steps to increase demand in the short run as a means of jump-starting economic growth and setting off a virtuous circle in which income growth, job creation and financial strengthening are mutually reinforcing.

International economic dialogue has vacillated between these two viewpoints in recent years. At moments of particularly acute concern about growth, such as in spring 2009 and now, the IMF and many but not all monetary and fiscal authorities tend to emphasize demand-support views. But the moment clouds start to lift, orthodoxy reasserts itself and attention shifts to fiscal contraction and long-run financial hygiene.

This is a dangerous cycle whatever your economic beliefs. Doctors who prescribe antibiotics warn their patients that they must complete the full course even if they feel much better quickly. Otherwise they risk a recurrence of illness and worse yet the development of more antibiotic resistance. So too with economic policy. Advocates of orthodoxy prize consistency. Those like me whose economic thinking emphasizes promoting demand worry that expansionary policies carried out for too short a time will prove insufficient to kick-start growth while at the same time discrediting their own efficacy and reducing confidence.

The Tokyo meetings may not have had immediate impact. But the IMF’s emphasis on the need to sustain demand and its recognition of the importance of avoiding lurches to austerity can be very important for the medium term only if it is sustained through the next round of economic fluctuations.

Practical steps to climate control

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May 28, 2007

If global warming is the ultimate inconvenient truth, the most important inconvenient truth about global warming policy, argued in last month’s column, is what happens in the developing world. These countries will deliver three-quarters of the increase in global greenhouse gas emissions over the next generation, on current forecasts. Beyond the developing world’s preponderant impact on emissions, there is the additional reality that because so much of economic activity is mobile, policies that restrict emissions in some places but not everywhere may just relocate emissions not reduce them.

Developing countries recognise that today’s greenhouse gas problem was made mostly by industrial countries, that their own energy usage per capita represents about 20 per cent of the corresponding industrial country usage and that their citizens have pressing material needs. They are also keenly aware of the uncertainty surrounding projections of economic growth, patterns of production and future energy technologies. It is easy to sympathise with their extreme reluctance to commit to levels of emissions decades from now that are lower than what industrial countries are emitting today.

For these and other reasons, I argued last time that the Kyoto approach to climate change – through the setting of targets – could prove to be like the League of Nations approach to preserving peace: idealistic and visionary yet impractical, ultimately ineffective and perhaps even counterproductive because of the valuable political capital it consumes. I hope I am wrong but I fear that commitments to vast reductions in emissions decades hence are no more real than commitments to end aggressions or war.

What then should be done either instead of or as a complement to the Kyoto approach? The place to start is with the recognition that it is much easier for governments to make and keep commitments to policies they can control than to outcomes they cannot assure. Whatever targets are negotiated or set, emphasis should also be placed on concrete measures that will have meaningful impact.

First, the US must engage in an energy efficiency programme that takes effect without delay and has meaningful bite. As long as developing countries can point to the US as a free rider there will not be serious dialogue about what they are willing to do. I prefer carbon and/or gasoline tax measures to permit systems or heavy regulatory approaches because the latter are more likely to be economically inefficient and to be regressive. The key point is that after Kyoto, where there was US vision in setting goals but no on-the-ground action, there must be real policy commitments.

Second, the major industrial countries should commit to a very large increase in funding for research in technologies that offer the prospect of reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases, such as renewable energy, carbon sequestration and energy efficient engines. They should also learn a lesson from the pharmaceutical experience and commit to making intellectual property relating to clean energy available to developing countries on preferential terms. It may be that ambitious emissions- reduction targets can be achieved with existing technology, yet new technologies could help.

Third, the World Bank, and probably the regional development banks, should be reconstituted by their shareholders as “Banks for Development and the Global Environment” and take on as a major mission the provision of subsidised capital for projects that have environmental benefits that go beyond national borders. There is much that can be done to encourage energy efficiency in almost every sector within developing countries, yet national governments have inadequate incentives to take account of global impacts. Moreover, the institutions need a new role with respect to countries other than the poorest ones at a time when the leading developing countries are actually exporting rather than importing capital.

Fourth, a goal should be set of eliminating by 2025 the more than $200bn the world spends each year on energy subsidies, and enforced through strategies such as those used for inappropriate subsidies in trade. This is a clear case where environmental and economic imperatives coincide and it is one where external political commitment is likely to be desirable in many countries, just as in the trade area. This will require considerable work on the definition of and measurement of total energy subsidies. Such work will lay a foundation for the more ambitious efforts that may be needed in harmonising world energy prices above market levels in the future.

There is a final critical process element in the policy response. Given that viable solutions depend on significant changes in developing country policies and that these countries are unlikely to make them unless they see their own interests as at stake, it is essential that they be full participants in setting the global direction. They are surely likely to do more if they can help shape policy than if it is simply the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations seeking to bring them along.

Is all of this a sufficiently ambitious agenda? Perhaps not; and perhaps political efforts to generate commitments to ambitious if remote targets can be worthwhile as powerful forces for change, as with human rights in eastern Europe. But they must be married to more immediate if less dramatic steps that have real and practical effect.

The writer is Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.

Harness market forces to share prosperity

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June 24, 2007

When I studied economics in graduate school a generation ago we were taught that it was a “stylised fact” that the US income distribution was very stable. We were shown that the fraction of the population in poverty tracked almost perfectly the performance of median family income over time and that productivity growth and average real wage growth moved together, with both declining sharply after the oil shocks of the 1970s. These observations led naturally to the conclusion that the main way of reducing poverty or increasing the incomes of middle income families was raising the rate of economic growth.

Today, we have another generation’s worth of data including the experience of the information technology-driven re-acceleration of productivity growth in the 1990s. This experience forces a reassessment of the earlier economic orthodoxy. It can no longer plausibly be asserted that the income distribution is relatively static or that average wage growth tracks productivity growth. Indeed, in a recent paper on tax policy prepared for the Hamilton project, my collaborators and I concluded from Congressional Budget Office data that, since 1979, changes in income distribution had raised the pre-tax incomes of the top 1 per cent of the population by $664bn or $600,000 per family – an increase of 43 per cent.

By definition what one group gains from changes in the distribution of income another group must lose. The lower 80 per cent of families are $664bn poorer than they would be with a static income distribution, which works out to $7,000 less in income per family or a 14 per cent loss. To put this in some perspective, the total gain in median family incomes adjusted for inflation between 1979 and 2004 was only 14 per cent. If middle income families had shared fully in the economy’s income growth over the past generation their incomes would have risen twice as rapidly!

While the most recent data available for performing these calculations come from 2004, it appears that the trend towards increased inequality is continuing and may even be accelerating, and will continue even in years when the price of stocks and other assets does not rise abnormally. It also appears that these trends reflect far more than increases in the financial return from education, as the top 1 per cent of the population has pulled away from the rest of the top 10 per cent and the top 0.1 per cent has pulled away from the rest of the top 1 per cent.

Public policy has been successful in cushioning the impact of these trends but in some cases, such as President George W. Bush’s tax cuts, has actually exacerbated them. Of even greater concern is the growing suspicion that gaps in educational access for children and in life expectancy across the population may well be increasing. The observation that trends of the type observed in the US are also observed in other industrialised countries – in particular the English-speaking countries – suggests that something quite fundamental is at work.

What should be done? As is often the case in economic policy the answers are not entirely clear but probably lie between the extreme positions on offer. In the face of the experience of the past generation it is no longer credible, if it ever was, to argue that the goal of economic policy should be only to increase the size of the economy and that addressing questions of its distribution is populist or divisive. Given what has not happened to the pay cheques of average workers over the period of the information technology-induced acceleration in productivity and cyclical expansion, it is not plausible to suppose that policies that focus only on aggregate economic growth are sufficient to meet current challenges.

Equally, arguments that suggest the only way to raise the incomes of middle-class families is through measures to regulate business practices more heavily or to restrict increases in international trade are very dangerous. As much justified concern as we have about increased inequality, we need to recognise that it could be much worse if the economy had not been able to achieve the combination of under 5 per cent unemployment and sub-3 per cent inflation that we have enjoyed for much of the past decade. This surely would not have happened without the US economy benefiting from greater global integration. As western Europe’s long experience with unemployment rates that in some cases are more than double American rates illustrates, we would be taking great risks if, in the name of benefiting workers, we took steps that made production in the US less competitive in the global marketplace.

The right approach is activist but it embraces activism that goes with – rather than against – the grain of the market system. This is not a new idea. The enduring legacy of the New Deal is not the many measures taken to regulate prices or increase public employment. It is the measures such as securities regulation and Social Security that do not seek to oppose but channel market forces and mitigate their consequences.

The challenge for those running for president of the US in 2008 – a challenge very different from that faced by presidential candidates until very recently – will be to develop a mandate for policy approaches that can ensure prosperity is more fully shared without threatening its fundamental basis.

The writer is Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.

Funds that shake capitalist logic

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July 29, 2007

For some time now, the large flow of capital from the developing to the industrialised world has been the principal irony of the international financial system. In 2007 this flow will total well over half a trillion dollars, a figure that will be comfortably exceeded by the build-up in reserves and sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) in developing countries.

Indeed, Morgan Stanley has estimated on reasonable assumptions that there is now close to $2,500bn (£1,200bn, €1,800bn) in SWFs and that this figure will increase to $5,000bn by 2010 and $12,000bn by 2015.

Inevitably, and appropriately, countries possessed of publicly held foreign assets far in excess of anything needed to respond to financial contingencies feel pressure to deploy them strategically or at least to earn higher returns than those available in US Treasury bills or their foreign equivalents. Even without this pressure, SWFs are now growing at a faster pace than the global rate of new issuance of traditional reserve assets.

There is plenty of room for debate over how large these funds should become. (Does China really need a saving rate in excess of 50 per cent that all but forces hundreds of billions of dollars in reserve growth?) But on any plausible path over the next few years, a crucial question for the global financial system and indeed for the global economy is how these funds will be invested.

The question is profound and goes to the nature of global capitalism. A signal event of the past quarter-century has been the sharp decline in the extent of direct state ownership of business as the private sector has taken ownership of what were once government-owned companies. Yet governments are now accumulating various kinds of stakes in what were once purely private companies through their cross-border investment activities.

In the last month we have seen government-controlled Chinese entities take the largest external stake (albeit non-voting) in Blackstone, a big private equity group that, indirectly through its holdings, is one of the largest employers in the US. The government of Qatar is seeking to gain control of J. Sainsbury, one of Britain’s largest supermarket chains. Gazprom, a Russian conglomerate in effect controlled by the Kremlin, has strategic interests in the energy sectors of a number of countries and even a stake in Airbus. Entities controlled by the governments of China and Singapore are offering to take a substantial stake in Barclays, giving it more heft in its effort to pull off the world’s largest banking merger, with ABN Amro.

To date most of the official commentary on the issue of SWFs has been framed in terms of traditional arguments about cross-border capital flows. US and UK officials have raised ­concerns that focus only on the desirability of reciprocity and transparency and on how to treat sectors that trigger national security questions. Others, particularly in ­continental Europe, have been less positive and have emphasised nationalist considerations about the benefits of local ownership and control.

What has received less attention are the particular risks associated with ownership by government-controlled entities, particularly where the ownership stake is taken through direct investments. The logic of the capitalist system depends on shareholders causing companies to act so as to maximise the value of their shares. It is far from obvious that this will over time be the only motivation of governments as shareholders. They may want to see their national companies compete effectively, or to extract technology or to achieve influence.

We have seen the degree of concern over News Corp’s attempt to buy The Wall Street Journal. How differently should one feel about a direct investment stake of a foreign government in a media or publishing company?

Apart from the question of what foreign stakes would mean for companies, there is the additional question of what they might mean for host governments. What about the day when a country joins some “coalition of the willing” and asks the US president to support a tax break for a company in which it has invested? Or when a decision has to be made about whether to bail out a company, much of whose debt is held by an ally’s central bank?

All of these risks would be greatly mitigated if SWFs invested through intermediary asset managers, as is the case with most institutional pools of capital such as endowments and pension funds. The experience of many endowments and pension funds suggests that this approach is in most cases likely to produce the best risk-adjusted returns.

To the extent that SWFs pursue different approaches from other large pools of capital, the reasons have to be examined. The most plausible reasons – the pursuit of objectives other than maximising risk-adjusted returns and the ability to use government status to increase returns – are also most suspect from the viewpoint of the global system.

None of this is to propose policy. That can come only after the investment policies of SWFs have been much more extensively debated and many details have been clarified. But it is to register a cautionary note about the debates over SWFs so far.

Governments are very different from other economic actors. Their investments should be governed by rules designed with that reality very clearly in mind.

The writer is Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.

This is where Fannie and Freddie step in

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August 26, 2007

Over the past 20 years major financial disruptions have taken place roughly every three years, starting with the 1987 stock market crash; the Savings & Loans collapse and credit crunch of the early 1990s; the 1994 Mexican crisis; the Asian financial crises of 1997 with the Russian and Long-Term Capital Management events of 1998; the bursting of the technology bubble in 2000; the potential disruptions of the payments system after the events of September 11 2001 and the deflationary scare in the credit markets in 2002 after the collapse of Enron.

This record suggests that by 2007 the world had been overdue a major disruption. Sure enough the problems of subprime mortgages – initially seen as a confined issue – went systemic as the market began to doubt the creditworthiness of even the strongest institutions and rushed to buy US Treasury debt. Financial crises differ in detail but, just as there are plot cycles common to literary tragedies, they follow a common arc.

First there is a period of overconfidence, rising asset values and growing leverage as investors increase their faith in strategies that have enjoyed a long run of success. Second, there is a surprise that leads investors to seek greater safety. In the current case it was the discovery of huge problems in the subprime sector and the resulting loss of confidence in the ratings agencies. Third, as investors rush for the exits, the focus of risk analysis shifts from fundamentals to investor behaviour. As some investors liquidate their assets, prices fall; others are in turn forced to liquidate, further driving prices down. The anticipation of cascading liquidations leads to more liquidations creating price movements that seemed inconceivable only a few weeks before. The reduced availability of credit then has a negative effect on the real economy. Eventually – sometimes in a few months as in the US in 1987 and 1998; sometimes over a decade, as in Japan during the 1990s – there is enough price adjustment that extraordinary fear gives way to ordinary greed and the process of repair begins.

Only time will tell where we are in this cycle. There have been some signs of returning normalcy over the past week, but we cannot judge whether they represent a false spring or the end of a crisis phase. There may be further shoes to drop in the financial sector. The impact on consumer confidence and spending that has driven US expansion over the past several years remains unknown.

While it is too soon to draw policy lessons, we can highlight questions the crisis points up. Three stand out.

First, this crisis has been propelled by a loss of confidence in ratings agencies as large amounts of debt that had been very highly rated has proven very risky and headed towards default. There is room for debate over whether the errors of the ratings agencies stem from a weak analysis of complex new credit instruments, or from the conflicts induced when debt issuers pay for their ratings and can shop for the highest rating. But there is no room for doubt that – as in previous financial crises involving Mexico, Asia and Enron – the ratings agencies dropped the ball. In light of this, should bank capital standards or countless investment guidelines be based on ratings? What is the alternative? Sarbanes-Oxley was a possibly flawed response to the problems Enron highlighted in corporate accounting. What, if any, legislative response is appropriate to address the ratings concerns?

Second, how should policymakers address crises centred on non-financial institutions? A premise of the US financial system is that banks accept much closer supervision in return for access to the Federal Reserve’s payments system and discount window. The problem this time is not that banks lack capital or cannot fund themselves. It is that the solvency of a range of non-banks is in question, both because of concerns about their economic fundamentals and because of cascading liquidations as investors who lose confidence in them seek to redeem their money and move into safer, more liquid investments. Central banks that seek to instil confidence by lending to banks, or reducing their cost of borrowing, may, as the saying goes, be pushing on a string. Is it wise to push banks to become public financial utilities in times of crisis? Should there be more lending and/or regulation of the non-bank financial institutions?

Third, what is the role for public authorities in supporting the flow of credit to the housing sector? The lesson learnt during the S&L debacle was that it was catastrophic to finance home ownership through insured banking institutions that borrowed short term and then offered long-term fixed-rate home mortgages. Now a system reliant on securitisation, adjustable rate mortgages and non-insured financial institutions has broken down.

I am among the many with serious doubts about the wisdom of the government quasi-guarantees that supported the government-sponsored entities, Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp , as they have operated in the mortgage market. But surely if there is ever a moment when they should expand their activities it is now, when mortgage liquidity is drying up. No doubt, credit standards in the subprime market were too low for too long. Now, as borrowers face higher costs as their adjustable rate mortgages are reset, is not the time for the authorities to get religion and discourage the provision of credit.

This crisis could have a silver lining if it leads to the careful reflection on these vital questions.

The writer is the Charles W. Eliot professor at Harvard University.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012

Beware moral hazard fundamentalists

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September 23, 2007

Central to every policy discussion in response to a financial crisis or the prospect of a crisis is the concept of moral hazard. Unfortunately, there is great confusion in many quarters about the circumstances when moral hazard is, and is not, a problem. The world has at least as much to fear from a moral hazard fundamentalism that precludes actions that would enhance confidence and stability as it does from moral hazard itself.

The term “moral hazard” originally comes from the area of insurance. It refers to the prospect that insurance will distort behaviour, for example when holders of fire insurance take less precaution with respect to avoiding fire or when holders of health insurance use more healthcare than they would if they were not insured.
In the financial arena the spectre of moral hazard is invoked to oppose policies that reduce the losses of financial institutions that have made bad decisions. In particular, it is used to caution against creating an expectation that there will be future “bail-outs”.

Moral hazard forms the basis for criticism of a wide range of measures including, among others; large International Monetary Fund loans to countries experiencing financial panics; public sector actions to facilitate co-ordination of creditors, as in the famous 1998 case of the New York Fed and Long Term Capital Management; lender of last resort activities by central banks through their discount window; aggressive cuts in interest rates following collapses in asset prices; and the extension of government guarantees or quasi-guarantees to liabilities of financial institutions, as in deposit insurance or the US government’s support for the credit of mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Moral hazard fundamentalists misunderstand the insurance analogy, fail to recognise the special features of public actions to maintain confidence in the financial sector and conflate what are in fact quite different policy issues. As a consequence, their proposed policies, if followed, would reduce the efficiency of the financial sector in normal times, exacerbate financial crises and increase economic instability. They are wrong in three crucial respects.

First, granting for the moment the relevance of the insurance analogy, as the economist Michael Mussa has pointed out, the prospect that people may smoke in bed is not usually taken as an argument against the existence of fire departments. Moreover, if there is “contagion” as fires can spread from one building to the next, the argument for not leaving things to the free market is greatly strengthened. In the presence of contagion there is every reason to expect that individual institutions will under-insure because they will not feel obliged to take account of the benefits their insurance will have for others.

Second, the insurance analogy fails to take account of what is a key aspect of the financial context – moral hazard and confidence are opposite sides of the same coin. Financial institutions can fail because they become insolvent, as misguided lending or borrowing causes their liabilities to exceed their assets. But solvent institutions can also fail because of illiquidity simply because creditors rush to withdraw their funds and assets cannot be liquidated fast enough. In this latter case the availability of external support averts needless panic and contagion.

More subtly, but no less important, the knowledge that efforts will be made to stand behind solvent institutions facing runs reduces the capital institutions have to hold, encourages investment in productive but illiquid projects and reduces the risk of contagion.

Third, in the insurance template used in thinking about moral hazard, the insurer pays more out because of the behavioural changes induced by insurance, such as when the failure to install fire extinguishers makes fires more costly. Something parallel happens when the government guarantees a financial institution’s liabilities.

But much of what financial authorities do in response to crises does not impose any costs on taxpayers and may actually make them better off. In the much criticised LTCM case no taxpayer money, except perhaps the cost of a lunch, was spent. A competent lender of last resort – in Bagehot’s sense of one who lends freely at a penalty rate against good collateral – actually turns a profit, as the IMF did in its response to the financial crises of the 1990s. Monetary policies that prevent deflation of the kind that cost Japan a decade of growth in the 1990s are another example of how a policy can respond to stress without imposing costs on taxpayers or the economy.

Where does all of this leave policy? It certainly suggests that moral hazard is not always a negative with respect to policy responses to financial stress. In particular, the idea put forward by some that a central bank should act only once it is clear that financial problems have become serious enough to threaten a breakdown of the financial system or a sharp downturn in economic activity cannot be right.

Instead, these considerations suggest that prudent central banks will make judgments during financial crises not on the basis of “avoiding moral hazard” but rather by asking themselves three questions.

First, are there substantial contagion effects? Second, is the problem a liquidity problem where a contribution to stability can be provided with high probability or does it involve problems of solvency? Third, is it reasonable to expect that the action in question will not impose costs on taxpayers? If the answers to all three questions are affirmative, there is a strong case for public action.

The writer is the Charles W. Eliot professor at Harvard University

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.

How to handle the falling dollar

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October 28, 2007

The falling dollar generates anxiety almost everywhere. Americans and those dependent on American growth worry about the proverbial “hard landing” as inflation and interest rates rise with a weakening dollar, causing asset prices and output to fall. Europeans and others with currencies that float freely against the dollar worry that their currencies will bear a disproportionate share of the dollar’s decline and appreciate too far, leading to competitiveness problems. The falling dollar risks rising inflation, asset bubbles and the loss of macroeconomic control in countries that have tied their currencies to the dollar’s sagging mast.

The dollar’s decline may provoke anxiety but it should not be a surprise to anyone who has followed the global economy in recent years. History suggests that periods when a country’s economy turns down, short-term interest rates are declining and financial strains are increasing are likely to be periods when a nation’s currency depreciates. Moreover the US current account has for years now been financing consumption rather than investment, with the financing coming increasingly from debt rather than equity and shorter rather than longer-term debt.

There is nothing very new about a decline in currency of a country running a large current account deficit and whose economy is softening. But in important respects the situation of the dollar is almost without precedent.

The vast majority of the US current account deficit is now being funded by central banks accumulating reserves as they seek to avoid appreciation of their home currencies. While the US dollar is usually viewed as a floating rate currency, substantial and critical parts of the world economy operate with currencies pegged to dollar parities or at least managed with them in mind.

This suggests the need for rethinking traditional approaches to dollar policy at a time when the global economy is more vulnerable than it has been since 1998.

The Clinton administration approach of asserting the desirability of a strong dollar based on strong fundamentals while allowing its value to be set on foreign exchange markets was highly successful in its time and has largely been followed by the Bush Treasury. But it is insufficient in the current world, where the dollar’s trade-weighted exchange rate is to an important extent managed abroad. Some means of engagement must be found with those who have yoked their currencies and so their financial policies to that of the US.

The US has responded in an ad hoc way by carrying on a “strategic dialogue” with China – by far the largest economy with an exchange rate linked to the dollar – backed by congressional threats to address exchange rate issues using the tools of trade policy and references to communiqués from the Group of Seven leading industrial nations. In reality the dialogue is anything but strategic. Like so much of American international policy in recent years, it seems to confuse the firm statement of legitimate desire with the serious conduct of diplomacy.

Think of the questions Chinese policymakers must ask themselves. What is the highest US priority – global financial stability or market access for well-connected US firms? Can the US take yes for an answer or is it a certainty that a new president will insist in 18 months on a new set of economic diplomacy accomplishments with China? In which areas, if any, is the US prepared to adjust its policies in response to global interests? Given that the Chinese authorities have presided over nearly double-digit annual growth for a generation, do US officials who make assertions about what is in China’s interest have the experience and knowledge of China that should cause their views to be taken seriously? Why is China being singled out? How could China – even if it wished to – act in ways that the US prefers without appearing to yield to international pressure?

Maintaining global financial stability and the role of the dollar requires a more strategic approach – a task that, given the political calendar, is likely to fall to the next US administration.

The G7 process has lost its focus on exchange rate issues over the years as its member governments stopped trying to manage their rates. In any event, the G7 is something of an anachronism in the current international context.

It needs to be radically reinvented, starting with a change in its composition. Yet its history – particularly in its early years, when it focused heavily on macroeconomic and exchange rate policies – is instructive. Two principles stand out.

First, any new approach must be premised on the desirability of a strong, integrated global economy that benefits the citizens of all countries, not on the idea that economists or politicians can calculate “fair” exchange rates.

The right and potentially effective case for adjustments in the current alignment of exchange rates relies on their unsustainability and the distortions they induce in macroeconomic policies, not on ideas of fairness to workers.

Second, multilateralism is better politics and economics than unilateralism but it must not become an excuse for inertia. Any new group should be as large as necessary and no larger, should meet with some frequency and should include central bankers. It should be analytically informed but everyone should know that key decisions will ultimately be taken by senior officials in the national interest, not by international organisations.

The stakes are high. Well-managed finance cannot on its own make a country stable and prosperous, let alone the world. But history tells us that poorly managed finance foments instability and economic insecurity.

The writer is the Charles W. Eliot professor at Harvard University

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.

Wake up to the dangers of a deepening crisis

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November 25, 2007

Three months ago it was reasonable to expect that the subprime credit crisis would be a financially significant event but not one that would threaten the overall pattern of economic growth. This is still a possible outcome but no longer the preponderant probability.

Even if necessary changes in policy are implemented, the odds now favour a US recession that slows growth significantly on a global basis. Without stronger policy responses than have been observed to date, moreover, there is the risk that the adverse impacts will be felt for the rest of this decade and beyond.

Several streams of data indicate how much more serious the situation is than was clear a few months ago. First, forward-looking indicators suggest that the housing sector may be in free-fall from what felt like the basement levels of a few months ago. Single family home construction may be down over the next year by as much as half from previous peak levels. There are forecasts implied by at least one property derivatives market indicating that nationwide house prices could fall from their previous peaks by as much as 25 per cent over the next several years.

We do not have comparable experiences on which to base predictions about what this will mean for the overall economy, but it is hard to believe declines of anything like this magnitude will not lead to a dramatic slowing in the consumer spending that has driven the economy in recent years.

Second, it is now clear that only a small part of the financial distress that must be worked through has yet been faced. On even the most optimistic estimates, the rate of foreclosure will more than double over the next year as rates reset on subprime mortgages and home values fall. Estimates vary, but there is nearly universal agreement that – if all assets were marked to market valuations – total losses in the American financial sector would be several times the $50bn or so in write-downs that have already been announced by big financial institutions. These figures take no account of the likelihood that losses will spread to the credit card, auto and commercial property sectors. Nor do they recognise the large volume of financial instruments that depend for their high ratings on guarantees provided by credit insurers whose own health is now very much in doubt.

Third, the capacity of the financial system to provide credit in support of new investment on the scale necessary to maintain economic expansion is in increasing doubt. The extent of the flight to quality and its expected persistence was powerfully demonstrated last week when the yield on the two-year Treasury bond dropped below 3 per cent for the first time in years. Banks and other financial intermediaries will inevitably curtail new lending as they are hit by a perfect storm of declining capital due to mark-to-market losses, involuntary balance sheet expansion as various backstop facilities are called, and greatly reduced confidence in the creditworthiness of traditional borrowers as the economy turns downwards and asset prices fall.

Then there are the potentially adverse effects on confidence of a sharply falling dollar, rising energy costs, geopolitical uncertainties especially in the Middle East, or lower global growth as economic slowdown and a falling dollar cause the US no longer to fulfil its traditional role of importer of last resort.

In such an environment, economic policy needs to be governed by the clear and public recognition that restoring the normal functioning of the financial system and containing any damage its breakdown may do the real economy is the central macro-economic and financial challenge facing the US. In the US today, as in many other countries in the past, confidence will return the first day an official statement about the economy proves to have been too pessimistic.

What concrete steps are necessary? First, maintaining demand must be the over-arching macro-economic priority. That means the Fed has to get ahead of the curve and recognise – as the market already has – that levels of the Fed Funds rate that were neutral when the financial system was working normally are quite contractionary today. As important as long-run deficit reduction is, fiscal policy needs to be on stand-by to provide immediate temporary stimulus through spending or tax benefits for low- and middle-income families if the situation worsens.

Second, policymakers need to articulate a clear strategy addressing the various pressures leading to contractions in credit. Very likely this will involve measures that are non-traditional, given how much of the problem lies outside bank balance sheets. The time for worrying about imprudent lending is past. The priority now has to be maintaining the flow of credit. The current main policy thrust – the so-called “super conduit”, in which banks co-operate to take on the assets of troubled investment vehicles – has never been publicly explained in any detail by the US Treasury. On the information available, the “super conduit” has worrying similarities with Japanese banking practices of the 1990s that aroused criticism from American authorities for their lack of transparency, suppression of genuine market pricing of bad credits, and inhibiting effect on new lending. Perhaps there is a strong case for it, but that case has yet to be made.

Third, there needs to be a comprehensive approach taken to maintaining demand in the housing market to the maximum extent possible. The government operating through the Federal Housing Administration, through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or through some kind of direct lending, needs to assure that there is a continuing flow of reasonably priced loans to credit worthy home purchasers. At the same time there need to be templates established for the restructuring of mortgages to homeowners who cannot afford their resets, so every case does not have to be managed individually.

All of this may not be enough to avert a recession. But it is much more than is under way right now.

The writer is the Charles W. Eliot professor at Harvard University

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.

Beyond fiscal stimulus, further action is needed

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January 27, 2008

Markets and perceptions of the economic outlook change rapidly. Even two months ago most observers doubted predictions of a US recession, saw no need for a fiscal stimulus, and thought that inflation fears should constrain monetary policy. Now, Washington is more or less settled on a stimulus package that will exceed $150bn; markets at one point last week expected a Fed funds rate below 2 per cent by September. The debate about recession is now about how deep and global its impact will be.

There is enormous uncertainty around economic or financial forecasts. It is possible that pessimism will recede as declining interest rates and dollar exchange rates increase demand. It is more likely, though, that the situation will deteriorate further as perceptions of declining growth increase credit spreads and risk premiums in financial markets, leading to reduced lending, borrowing and spending exacerbating the pessimism about growth.

Perhaps inevitably given the complexity of the problems, policy measures have seemed ad hoc and reactive: measures to increase bank liquidity one week; to help homeowners avoid foreclosure another; to work towards fiscal stimulus another; to lower interest rates most recently. Confidence would be well served by a comprehensive programme of measures that offers the prospect of accelerating growth and insures against a prolonged downturn. Until that happens, it will be difficult for confidence to return.

Substantial monetary and fiscal stimulus is now in train. This will reduce the severity of any recession and provide some insurance against a protracted downturn. Along with macro-economic stimulus in the US, there is the need for further policy development in three other areas – repair of the financial system, containing the damage caused by the housing sector and assuring the global co-ordination of policy. This column addresses the first of these imperatives; I will address the remainder in the near future.

Financial institutions are holding all sorts of credit instruments that are impaired but are difficult to value, creating uncertainty and freezing new lending. Without more visibility, the economy and financial system risk freezing up as Japan’s did in the 1990s.

It is therefore tempting to suggest that paper be aggressively marketed so that prices can be “discovered” and uncertainty resolved. More of this needs to happen. But in the current environment few are looking to increase risk and even fewer are willing to finance increased risk-taking. As a consequence, the prices discovered are likely to be very low and to reflect market conditions more than underlying credit quality. This could trigger cascading liquidations leading to panic.

Proper policy regarding valuing assets and forcing their sale depends on distinguishing between prices that reflect fundamentals and prices that reflect current illiquidity. Good policy is art as much as science, depending as it does on market psychology as well as the underlying realities.

The essential element, if there is to be more transparency in the financial system without a major credit crunch, is increased levels of capital. More capital permits more recognition of impairments and makes asset transfers easier by increasing the number of potential purchasers. It is preferable for the economy that banks bolster their capital positions by diluting current owners than by shrinking their lending activities. A critical element of regulatory policy should be insisting on increased capital in existing financial institutions. From this perspective the recent efforts by a number of major financial institutions to raise capital from sovereign wealth funds are constructive. But more will be necessary.

Efforts to infuse capital into existing institutions should be matched by a greater effort to ensure transparent and fair valuations. A capital market where the same loan is valued at one price in a bank, another in a different bank, another in a conduit and yet another as a hedge fund asset to be margined cannot be the basis for sound economic performance.

It is critical that sufficient capital is infused into the bond insurance industry as soon as possible. Their failure or loss of a AAA rating is a potential source of systemic risk. Probably it will be necessary to turn in part to those companies that have a stake in guarantees remaining credible because they have large holdings of guaranteed paper. It appears unlikely that repair will take place without some encouragement and involvement by financial authorities. Though there are many differences and the current problem is more complex, the Long-Term Capital Management work-out is an example of successful public sector involvement.

While attention to date has focused on capital infusions into existing institutions, it would be desirable for capital to be injected into new institutions that do not have the legacy problems of existing ones and can meet the demand for new lending. Warren Buffett’s recent entry into bond insurance is an example. There are grounds for concern about the adequacy of the flow of lending for student loans, automobiles, consumer credit and non-conforming mortgages. In each of these areas, there may be a need for collective private action or for government measures.

Normal economic performance will not return without a return to normality in the credit markets. The fear that pervades the markets will not abate of its own accord, nor is there a silver bullet. But consistent, determined approaches to doing what is needed to resolve each of the problems that arise will, in the end, re-establish confidence.

The writer is the Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard University

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.

America needs a way to stem foreclosures

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February 24, 2008

The American economic outlook remains highly uncertain. But macro­economic policy is now properly aligned, as the economy will benefit over the next several quarters from fiscal and monetary stimulus. To the extent conditions warrant and inflation risks permit, monetary and fiscal policy are appropriately poised to provide further stimulus.

Policy towards America’s failing housing sector is in a far less satisfactory state. All honest analysts accept that policies adopted so far, such as the “teaser freezer” limits on resetting mortgage interest rates and increased federal support for mortgage lending, have had only a marginal impact on what may be the most serious crisis in housing finance since the Depression.

It appears house prices are down by 5-10 per cent from their peak, with derivatives markets predicting further declines of about 20 per cent. Price falls of this magnitude are likely to mean more than 10m would have negative equity in their homes and more than 2m foreclosures would take place over the next two years.

Foreclosures are extremely costly. Between transaction costs that typically run at one-third or more of a home’s value and the adverse impact on neighbouring properties, foreclosures can easily dissipate more than the total value of the home being repossessed. They also inflict collateral economic damage, as reduced wealth and diminished borrowing capacity in homes reduces consumer spending, increases credit market fragility and depresses local tax bases.

What can public policy do? It cannot and should not try to fix the fact that at current prices the supply of homes significantly exceeds demand or the reality that many own homes, often for speculation, that are no longer viable and should be back on the market.

But it can and should address a crucial issue: when the current owner is able and willing to pay more than the lender can get by foreclosing on a house, it makes no sense to go through with a foreclosure. Yet because of conflicts among lenders, legal uncertainties and concerns about encouraging defaults, there are grounds for fearing that wasteful and unnecessary foreclosures will take place on a large scale, hurting families, communities, the economy and the financial system.

How can this problem be addressed? The string has pretty much been played out on hortatory policy, to limited effect. Without finding ways of writing down mortgage liabilities, new finance will do nothing for the problem group that has negative equity. Direct government intervention in mortgage markets risks creating delays, burdening taxpayers and inhibiting necessary adjustments in house prices.

The right focus is on measures that will prevent unnecessary foreclosures by facilitating more efficient settlements between homeowners and their creditors. Legal changes currently being debated, to bring practice with respect to family homes into conformity with general bankruptcy practice in two areas, could make an important contribution.

First, remarkably, bankruptcy laws currently provide that almost every form of property (including business property, vacation homes and those owned for rental) except an individual’s principal residence cannot be repossessed if an individual has a suitable court-approved bankruptcy plan. The rationale is the prevention of costly and inefficient liquidations. It is hard to see why similar protections should not be prudently extended to family homes.

Critics worry that such measures will dry up the supply of mortgage credit. This is a legitimate concern and the reason why legislation should be carefully and narrowly drafted, to be applicable only to past mortgages where there has been no fraud and where foreclosure is otherwise imminent. But it is worth noting that: some inhibition on lending to those who seem likely to go bankrupt might be a good thing; also, there has been an adequate supply of capital and ability to securitise in the market for vacation and rental housing, where debtors are protected; and moreover, chapter 12 of the bankruptcy code enacted in the mid-1980s, which applied these principles to family farms, helped to resolve great financial distress without long-term costs in terms of reduced farm lending – despite protestations much like those that are heard today.

Second, methods need to be found to enable creditors who accept a writedown in the value of their claims to retain an interest in the future appreciation of the homes on which they have mortgages. This is standard practice in situations of corporate distress, where debt claims are partially replaced by equity claims.

Obstacles to such mortgages include uncertainties about tax and accounting rules. But at a time when there are great advantages to inducing lenders to let families to remain in their homes – and when families facing foreclosure are prepared to do things they might not do in ordinary times – it would be desirable to pursue suggestions by the Office of Thrift Supervision for so-called negative equity certificates to support shared appreciation work-outs.

Bankruptcy reform alone could, on some estimates, avert 500,000 foreclosures and, by establishing templates for renegotiation, aid a wider restructuring of mortgage debts. Proper support for voluntary restructurings involving interests in future appreciation should realise still greater benefits. As with fiscal stimulus, rapid bipartisan co-operation between Congress and the administration would benefit the financial system, the real economy and millions of Americans.

The writer is Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.

Steps that can safeguard America’s economy

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March 31, 2008

Neither US financial institutions nor the economy are likely to suffer from a lack of central bank liquidity provision. New lending facilities are coming along almost weekly, the safety net has been expanded to include non-bank primary dealers, the Fed has demonstrated a willingness to take on directly the most problematic parts of Bear Stearns’ balance sheet, and the Fed funds rate has been reduced by 200 basis points within 7 weeks.

At the same time, processes are in motion that may lead to new demands for more than $1,000bn in mortgages, directly or indirectly. Recent regulatory actions will enable Federal Home Loan Banks along with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the government-sponsored enterprises) to purchase more than an additional $300bn in mortgage-backed securities.

There is substantial scope for further regulatory action as only a third of the punitive capital charge placed on Fannie and Freddie years ago has been lifted. Moreover, legislation to reduce foreclosures being pushed by Senator Christopher Dodd and Representative Barney Frank could result in the federal government purchasing or providing guarantees that enable the purchase of several hundred billion dollars worth of mortgages.

The confidence engendered by all of this has led to some normalisation in credit markets. Short-term Treasury note yields that had fallen to their lowest levels in a half century have risen to more normal levels as most credit spreads have narrowed considerably and market estimates of future volatility have declined.

It is sometimes darkest before the dawn. For the first time since last August, I believe it is not unreasonable to hope that in the US, at least, the financial crisis will remain in remission. The prices of many assets are discounting a severe recession or worse. Yet the combination of monetary and fiscal stimulus along with growing exports coming from a weaker dollar may limit the downturn, and newly induced demand for mortgages may support the mortgage market.

Just as cascading liquidations have contributed to a vicious cycle of both real and financial contraction, it is possible that recovery can be a virtuous circle in which improved financial and real economic performance are mutually reinforcing. Wise policymakers hope for the best but plan for the worst. Liquidity provision and government efforts to support the mortgage markets can address problems of confidence. But they cannot ultimately prevent asset prices from declining to true values or make troubled financial institutions solvent.

While spreads have come in somewhat, markets continue to price in significant probabilities of default for even the most apparently strong financial institution, reflecting in part concerns about their solvency. At the same time it needs to be recognised that the federal government is bearing credit risk in extraordinary ways through its implicit guarantee to the GSEs, the lending activities of the Fed and the general backstop it is providing to the financial system.

All of this implies that a priority for financial policy has to be increases in the level of capital held by financial institutions. Capital infusions to date fall far short of prospective losses. Without new capital, the financial sector will operate with too much risk and leverage or will put the economy at risk by restricting the flow of credit.

On a favourable economic scenario, increases in capital will accelerate the return to normality in sectors such as municipal finance and student loans where credit has dried up, and will offset the moral hazard created by lending to financial institutions.
On an unfavourable scenario, increased capital will protect the taxpayers who bear the burden of government and Fed guarantees, will make possible more immediate and honest recognition of losses and will reduce the risk of vicious balance sheet contraction if asset values decline again.

The policy approach should start with the GSEs. These institutions’ viability with anything like their current operating model depends on the implicit federal guarantee of their several trillion dollars of liabilities. It is appropriate at a time of crisis in the mortgage markets that they become, as their regulator put it last week, the “lender of first, last and every resort”.

It is not appropriate that their shareholders’ “heads I win, tails you lose” bet with the taxpayer be expanded for this purpose. Given their past and prospective losses, their regulator – supported by the Treasury, the Fed and, if necessary, Congress – should insist that they stop paying dividends and raise capital promptly and substantially as they expand their lending. In the unlikely event that the boards of these institutions refused, policymakers should put them into an appropriate form of administration that insures that their obligations will be met.

Because they do not have a similar public mission and are operated with more financial rigour and closer regulation, the situation is somewhat different with respect to other financial institutions.

As part of its dialogue with financial institutions, the Fed should push for further efforts to raise capital. Consideration should be given to collective actions designed to destigmatise cutting dividends or raising equity. The idea of linking access to Fed credit and measures to attract capital should also be explored. At a time when much is being given to financial institution shareholders and management, action to help the economy and protect the taxpayer should be expected in return.

The writer is the Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard University.

America needs to make a new case for trade

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April 27, 2008

While the financial crisis dominates current discussion on the US economy, questions regarding America’s future approach to globalisation are looming increasingly large.

Since the end of the second world war, American economic policy has supported an integrated global economy, stimulating development in poor countries, particularly in Asia, at unprecedented rates. Yet America’s commitment to internationalist economic policy is ever more in doubt. Even before the significant increases in unemployment likely in the months ahead, the indicators are all disturbing. Presidential candidates attack the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Colombian free trade agreement languishes. There are increasing attacks on foreign investment in the US, not to mention growing support for restrictive immigration policies.

To all of this the conventional wisdom has a well developed response, with four standard elements. First, the sceptic regarding trade deals or other internationalist policies is educated around the many benefits of trade, not just for exporters but also for consumers and the economy more generally.

Second, the sceptic is assured that the trade agreement in question is not just good classical economics that reaps the gains available from comparative advantage – it is also good mercantilism. This is because the US already has low trade barriers, which it will typically not need to reduce as much as its trading partner. Sometimes the argument is added that we are in competition with other major economic powers and will be at a disadvantage if a developing country has a free-trade agreement with them but not us.

Third, the sceptic is also told that most of the observed increases in income inequality in the American economy are due to new technology rather than increased trade – and that even to the extent that trade has a role, most increases in trade are not attributable to trade agreements.

Fourth, it is acknowledged that while trade agreements are good for the economy overall, not everyone wins. And so it is increasingly recognised that they must be complemented by more ambitious efforts to reduce income inequality and income insecurity. Sometimes the discussion focuses on adjustment assistance of various kinds. More recently, there has been a recognition of the need for much broader-gauged efforts to combat inequality and insecurity, such as universal healthcare.

All of these points have the very considerable virtue of being correct economic arguments. Taken together, they make a compelling case that the US is better off with than without trade agreements and that the world will be a richer, safer place with increasing economic integration. It is very possible that, if efforts to help those left behind are pursued with sufficient vigour, support for economic internationalism can be maintained.

But I suspect that the policy debate in the US, and probably in some other countries as well, will need to confront a deeper and broader issue: the gnawing suspicion of many that the very object of internationalist economic policy – the growing prosperity of the global economy – may not be in their interests. As Paul Samuelson pointed out several years ago, the valid proposition that trade barriers hurt an economy does not imply the corollary that it necessarily benefits from the economic success of its trading partners.

When other countries develop, American producers benefit from having larger markets to sell into but are challenged by more formidable competition. Which effect predominates cannot be judged a priori. But there are reasons to think that economic success abroad will be more problematic for American workers in the future.

First, developing countries increasingly export goods such as computers that the US produces on a significant scale, putting pressure on wages. At the same time, rising global prosperity increases the rewards accruing to the already highly paid producers of intellectual property goods such as films, where the US has a comparative advantage. Second, the growth of countries such as China raises competition for energy and environmental resources, raising the price for Americans.

Third and most fundamentally, growth in the global economy encourages the development of stateless elites whose allegiance is to global economic success and their own prosperity rather than the interests of the nation where they are headquartered. As one prominent chief executive put it in Davos this year: “We will be fine however America does but I hope for its sake that it will cut taxes and reduce regulation and put more pressure on young people to study in the ways that are necessary for it to be able to keep competing successfully.”

The chief executive was sincere and he captured an important truth. Even as globalisation increases inequality and insecurity, it is constantly and often legitimately invoked as an argument against the viability of progressive taxation, support for labour unions, strong regulation and substantial production of public goods that mitigate its adverse impacts.

In a world where Americans can legitimately doubt whether the success of the global economy is good for them, it will be increasingly difficult to mobilise support for economic internationalism. The focus must shift from supporting internationalism as traditionally defined to designing an internationalism that more successfully aligns the interests of working people and the middle class in rich countries with the success of the global economy. This will be the subject of my next column, which will appear on Monday May 5.

The writer is the Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.

A strategy to promote healthy globalisation

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May 4, 2008

Last week, in this column, I argued that making the case that trade agreements improve economic welfare might no longer be sufficient to maintain political support for economic internationalism in the US and other countries. Instead, I suggested that opposition to trade agreements, and economic internationalism more generally, reflected a growing recognition by workers that what is good for the global economy and its business champions was not necessarily good for them, and that there were reasonable grounds for this belief.

The most important reason for doubting that an increasingly successful, integrated global economy will benefit US workers (and those in other industrial countries) is the weakening of the link between the success of a nation’s workers and the success of both its trading partners and its companies. This phenomenon was first emphasised years ago by Robert Reich, the former US labour secretary. The normal argument is that a more rapidly growing global economy benefits workers and companies in an individual country by expanding the market for exports. This is a valid consideration. But it is also true that the success of other countries, and greater global integration, places more competitive pressure on an individual economy. Workers are likely disproportionately to bear the brunt of this pressure.

Part of the reason why US workers (or those in Europe and Japan) enjoy high wages is that they are more highly skilled than most workers in the developing world. Yet they also earn higher wages because they can be more productive – their effort is complemented by capital, broadly defined to include equipment, managerial expertise, corporate culture, infrastructure and the capacity for innovation. In a closed economy anything that promotes investment in productive capital necessarily raises workers’ wages. In a closed economy, corporations have a huge stake in the quality of the national workforce and infrastructure.

The situation is very different in an open economy where investments in innovation, brands, a strong corporate culture or even in certain kinds of equipment can be combined with labour from anywhere in the world. Workers no longer have the same stake in productive investment by companies as it becomes easier for corporations to combine their capital with lower priced labour overseas. Companies, in turn, come to have less of a stake in the quality of the workforce and infrastructure in their home country when they can produce anywhere. Moreover businesses can use the threat of relocating as a lever to extract concessions regarding tax policy, regulations and specific subsidies. Inevitably the cost of these concessions is borne by labour.

The public policy response of withdrawing from the global economy, or reducing the pace of integration,is ultimately untenable. It would generate resentment abroad on a dangerous scale, hurt the economy as other countries retaliated, and make us less competitive as companies in rival countries continue to integrate their production lines with developing countries. As Bill Clinton said in his first major international economic speech as president, “the United States must compete not retreat”.

The domestic component of a strategy to promote healthy globalisation must rely on strengthening efforts to reduce inequality and insecurity. The international component must focus on the interests of working people in all countries, in addition to the current emphasis on the priorities of global ­corporations.

First, the US should take the lead in promoting global co-operation in the international tax arena. There has been a race to the bottom in the taxation of corporate income as nations lower their rates to entice business to issue more debt and invest in their jurisdictions. Closely related is the problem of tax havens that seek to lure wealthy citizens with promises that they can avoid paying taxes altogether on large parts of their fortunes. It might be inevitable that globalisation leads to some increases in inequality; it is not necessary that it also compromise the possibility of progressive taxation.

Second, an increased focus of international economic diplomacy should be to prevent harmful regulatory competition. In many areas it is appropriate that regulations differ between countries in response to local circumstances. But there is a reason why progressives in the early part of the 20th century sought to have the federal government take over many kinds of regulatory responsibility. They were concerned that competition for business across states, and their ease of being able to move, would lead to a race to the bottom. Financial regulation is only one example of where the mantra of needing to be “internationally competitive” has been invoked too often as a reason to cut back on regulation. There has not been enough serious consideration of the alternative – global co-operation to raise standards. While labour standards arguments have at times been invoked as a cover for protectionism, and this must be avoided, it is entirely appropriate that US policymakers seek to ensure that greater global integration does not become an excuse for eroding labour rights.

To benefit the interests of US citizens and command broad political support, US international economic policy will need to focus on the issues in which the largest number of Americans have the greatest stake. A decoupling of the interests of businesses and nations may be inevitable; a decoupling of international economic policies and the interests of American workers is not.

The writer is the Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard University

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.