Category Archives: Notes

Monetary Policy When Interest Rates are Near Zero

In the 18th Geneva Report on the World Economy, Laurence Ball, Joseph Gagnon, Patrick Honohan and Signe Krogstrup ask whether “central banks can do [more] to provide stimulus when rates are near zero; and … whether policies exist that would lessen future constraints from the lower bound.”

They are optimistic and argue that the unconventional policies of recent years can be extended: “[I]t is likely that rates could go somewhat further than what has been done so far without adverse consequences” and “[m]ore stimulus can be provided if policymakers increase the scale of quantitative easing, and if they expand the range of assets they purchase to include risky assets such as equity.” While the authors concede that QE might have negative side effects they argue that the benefits are worth the costs.

To relax the zero lower bound constraint in the future, Ball, Gagnon, Honohan and Krogstrup argue in favor of a higher inflation target. They view cashless societies as not imminent but possible.

Banking on the Blockchain

In the NZZ, Axel Lehmann offers his views on the prospects of blockchain technologies in banking. Lehmann is Group Chief Operating Officer of UBS Group AG.

New possibilities:

  • Higher efficiency; lower cost; more robustness and simpler processes; real-time clearing;
  • no need for intermediaries; information exchange without risk of interference
  • automated “smart contracts;” automated wealth management;
  • more control over transactions; better data protection;
  • improved possibilities for macro prudential monitoring.

Challenges:

  • Speed; scalability; security;
  • privacy;
  • smart contracts require new contract law;
  • interface between traditional payments system and blockchain payment system.

Lehmann favors common standards and he points out that this is what is happening (R3-consortium with UBS, Hyperledger project with Linux foundation).

Related, Martin Arnold reported in the FT in late August that UBS, Deutsche Bank, Santander, BNY Mellon as well as the broker ICAP pursue the project of a “utility settlement coin.” Here is my reading of what this is:

  • The aim seems to be to have central banks on board; so USCs might be a form of reserves (base money). The difference to traditional reserves would be that USCs facilitate transactions using distributed ledgers rather than traditional clearing and settlement mechanisms. (This leads to the question of the appropriate interface between the two systems posed by Lehmann.)

But what’s in for central banks? Would this be a test before the whole clearing and settlement system is revamped, based on new blockchain technology? Don’t central banks fear that transactions on distributed ledgers might foster anonymity?

Chile’s Fully Funded Pension System

On Project Syndicate, Andres Velasco argues that one of the sources of the current problems with the Chilean pension system are the high fees charged by fund managers:

A government-appointed commission recently concluded that managers have generated high gross real returns on investments: from 1981 to 2013, the annual average was 8.6%; but high fees cut net returns to savers to around 3% per year over that period.

The commission’s report.

Should the Fed Reduce the Size of its Balance Sheet?

On his blog, Ben Bernanke discusses the merits of the Fed’s strategy to slowly reduce the size of its balance sheet to pre crisis levels. Bernanke (with reference to a paper by Robin Greenwood, Samuel Hanson and Jeremy Stein) suggests that this strategy should be reconsidered:

First, the large balance sheet provides lots of safe and liquid assets for financial markets. This might strengthen financial stability. (DN: In my view, there are also reasons to expect the opposite.)

Second, a larger balance sheet can help improve the workings of the monetary transmission mechanism, in particular if non-banks can deposit funds at the Fed. Currently, the Fed accepts funds from private-sector institutional lenders such as money market funds, through the overnight reverse repurchase program (RRP). (DN: I agree. As I have argued elsewhere, access to central bank balance sheets should be broadened.)

Third, with a large balance sheet and thus, large bank reserve holdings to start with, it could be easier to avoid “stigma” in the next financial crisis when banks need to borrow cash from the Fed but prefer not to in order not to signal weakness. (DN: Like the first, this third argument emphasizes banks’ needs. In my view, monetary policy should not emphasize these needs too much because it is far from clear whether bank incentives are sufficiently aligned with the interests of society at large.)

Bernanke also discusses the reasons why the Fed does want to reduce the balance sheet size.

First, in a financial panic, programs like the RRP could result in market participants depositing more and more funds at the Fed until the interbank market would be drained of liquidity. But these programs could be capped.

Second, a large balance sheet increases the risk of large fiscal losses for the Fed and thus, the public sector. Losses could trigger a legislative response and undermine the Fed’s policy independence. But these risks could be kept in check if the Fed invested in government paper that constitutes a close substitute to cash, such as three year government debt. (DN: But why, then, shouldn’t financial market participants hold three year government debt rather than reserves at the Fed? Because cash is much more liquid than government debt … But what does this mean?)

Investment Lessons

In the FT, looking back at ten years of The Long View, John Authers offers investment lessons that may be summarized in five points:

  • Always worry about costs and don’t try to outsmart the market. That is, hold index funds.
  • Rebalancing pays off.
  • Since getting the timing right is very hard, being out of the market is as risky as being in it.
  • To beat the market, buying at low prices is key. But know what you know and what you don’t. Public markets are efficient.
  • Money isn’t everything; in fact it’s not among the things that really matter.

Developing Countries Issue Sovereign Debt (Lots of)

In the FT, Elaine Moore reports that “[d]eveloping economies are on course to raise a record sum on global debt markets this year, as ultra-low rates in the developed world cheapen borrowing costs for countries from Asia to South America.” By the end of the year, hard currency debt sales by countries such as Mexico, Quatar, Saudi Arabia and Argentina are expected to reach USD 125 billion.

Reserves For Everyone

On a new website, Aleksander Berentsen rejects the Swiss Vollgeld initiative. As an alternative, he suggests the Swiss National Bank should offer transaction accounts for everybody, in line with proposals I have made earlier (see here (2016), here (2015), here (2015)).

In the Handelszeitung (here and here), Simon Schmid reports.

Central Bank Independence, Old-Fashioned?

The Economist speculates that central bank independence might be on its way out. The article suggests that motives for independence (i.e., Sargent/Wallace or Barro/Gordon type arguments) might be less relevant given the environment of low inflation and interest rates.

See also my earlier, related blog post.

India’s Tax System

In the FT, Amy Kuzmin reports that after debating for nearly a decade,

India’s parliament has approved a long-awaited overhaul of the country’s fragmented tax system … The bill … will amend the constitution to permit replacing the current patchwork of national, state and local levies with a single, unified value added tax system.

He expects the reform “to create a genuine single market” and hails it as “one of the most significant reforms to the Indian economy since liberalisation began 25 years ago.”

Research Funding in Economics

In the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok question whether NSF funds are allocated efficiently. They write:

First, a key question is not whether NSF funding is justified relative to laissez-faire, but rather, what is the marginal value of NSF funding given already existing government and nongovernment support for economic research? Second, we consider whether NSF funding might more productively be shifted in various directions that remain within the legal and traditional purview of the NSF. Such alternative focuses might include data availability, prizes rather than grants, broader dissemination of economic insights, and more. …

Public goods theory tells us that the National Science Foundation should support activities that are especially hard to support through traditional university, philanthropic, and private-sector sources. This insight suggests a simple test: to the extent that the NSF allocates funds to genuine public goods as opposed to subsidies on the margin, we ought to see a large difference in the kinds of projects the NSF supports compared to what the “market” sector supports. But what stands out from lists of prominent NSF grants … is how similar they look to lists of “good” research produced by today’s status quo.

Scandinavian Fantasies?

In an NBER working paper entitled “The Scandinavian Fantasy: The Sources of Intergenerational Mobility in Denmark and the U.S.,” Rasmus Landersø and James J. Heckman argue that

[m]easured by income mobility, Denmark is a more mobile society, but not when measured by educational mobility. … Greater Danish income mobility is largely a consequence of redistribution … policies. While Danish social policies for children produce more favorable cognitive test scores for disadvantaged children, these do not translate into more favorable educational outcomes, partly because of disincentives to acquire education arising from the redistributional policies that increase income mobility.

Money Demand

In a recent NBER working paper, Luca Benati, Robert E. Lucas, Jr., Juan Pablo Nicolini, and Warren Weber report estimates of long-term money demand. They write:

[U]sing annual data on money (M1, for us), nominal GDP, and short term interest rates from 31 countries over periods that range in some cases to over 100 years. We find remarkable stability in long run money demand behavior in many countries, and an equally surprising sameness across different countries. In some cases of instability, anomalies have straightforward explanations.

Private Sector Rescue for Italian Bank

In the FT, Rachel Sanderson and Martin Arnold report that the board of Monte dei Paschi is about to approve a recapitalization led by JPMorgan in order to avoid the alternative, a bailin according to European rules.

Other news sources reported that the European Commission had made it clear that it rejected the proposal by Italy’s prime minister (supported by the ECB president) to change the rules and let the Italian government finance the recapitalization. EU finance ministers and Angela Merkel had opposed the proposal as well.

This time, rules won.

“The IMF and the Crises in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal”

The Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund released a critical report on IMF supported policies in Greece, Ireland and Portugal. It questions the legitimacy of certain decisions. The executive summary states that

[t]he IMF’s pre-crisis surveillance mostly identified the right issues but did not foresee the magnitude of the risks … missed the build-up of banking system risks … shared the widely-held “Europe is different” mindset … Following the onset of the crisis, however, IMF surveillance successfully identified many unaddressed vulnerabilities, pushed for aggressive bank stress testing and recapitalization, and called for the formation of a banking union. …

In May 2010, the IMF Executive Board approved a decision to provide exceptional access financing to Greece without seeking preemptive debt restructuring, even though its sovereign debt was not deemed sustainable with a high probability. The risk of contagion was an important consideration … The IMF’s policy on exceptional access to Fund resources, which mandates early Board involvement, was followed only in a perfunctory manner. The 2002 framework for exceptional access was modified to allow exceptional access financing to go forward, but the modification process departed from the IMF’s usual deliberative process whereby decisions of such import receive careful review. Early and active Board involvement might or might not have led to a different decision, but it would have enhanced the legitimacy of any decision. …

The IMF, having considered the possibility of lending to a euro area member as unlikely, had never articulated how best it could design a program with a euro area country … where there was more than one conditional lender, the troika arrangement … proved to be an efficient mechanism … but the IMF lost its characteristic agility as a crisis manager. … the troika arrangement potentially subjected IMF staff’s technical judgments to political pressure …

The IMF-supported programs in Greece and Portugal incorporated overly optimistic growth projections. … Lessons from past crises were not always applied, for example when the IMF underestimated the likely negative response of private creditors to a high-risk program. …

The IMF’s handling of the euro area crisis raised issues of accountability and transparency, which helped create the perception that the IMF treated Europe differently. … Some documents on sensitive issues were prepared outside the regular, established channels; the IEO faced a lack of clarity in its terms of reference on what it could or could not evaluate; and there was no clear protocol on the modality of interactions between the IEO and IMF staff. The IMF did not complete internal reviews involving euro area programs on time, as mandated, which led to missed opportunities to draw timely lessons.

It lists the following recommendations:

… should develop procedures to minimize the room for political intervention in the IMF’s technical analysis. … should strengthen the existing processes to ensure that agreed policies are followed and that they are not changed without careful deliberation. … should clarify how guidelines on program design apply to currency union members. … should establish a policy on cooperation with regional financing arrangements. … should reaffirm their commitment to accountability and transparency and the role of independent evaluation …

In her response, the IMF’s Managing Director emphasizes that the IMF-supported programs did work in the cases of Ireland and Portugal (and in Cyprus) while Greece was a special case. She supports the report’s last four recommendations but disagrees with the premise of the first.

Could the Fed have Rescued Lehman Brothers?

In a paper, Larry Ball argues that

inadequate collateral and lack of legal authority were not the reasons that the Fed let Lehman fail. …

… the primary decision maker was Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson–even though he had no legal authority over the Fed’s lending decisions. … evidence supports the common theory that Paulson was influenced by the strong political opposition to financial rescues. … Another factor is that both Paulson and Fed officials, although worried about the effects of a Lehman failure, did not fully anticipate the damage that it would cause.

James Stewart comments in the New York Times.

Economics: The Core

The Economist reviews core ideas in economics. The introductory article to a new series points out that

economists’ fundamental mission is not to forecast recessions but to explain how the world works.

It argues that economists have delivered and it discusses six exemplary areas of economic research:

  • Nash equilibrium (article, August 20);
  • Mundell-Fleming trilemma (article, August 27);
  • Minsky financial instability (article, July 30);
  • Stolper-Samuelson trade effects on wages (article, August 6);
  • Keynes fiscal multiplier (article, August 13); and
  • Akerlof et al information asymmetries (article, July 23).

Refreshingly, the article argues that

[t]hese breakthroughs are adverts not just for the value of economics, but also for three other things: theory, maths and outsiders.

I agree. But the value of economics also derives from more elementary insights, related to, for example,

  • budget and resource constraints;
  • the information content of prices;
  • public choice; or
  • the link between monetary aggregates and the general price level.

Today, these latter insights might appear even more trivial than those picked by The Economist. But they are central, and emphasizing them might lead to different policy conclusions than the common focus on economic frictions and aggregate demand.