Year: 2012

Ireland votes on the Fiscal Stability Treaty on Thursday. The local debate over the last month has been highly revealing in terms of the evolving attitude to Europe and the euro.

One strand of the debate has been narrow in scope, focusing on the technical details of the Fiscal Treaty (measurement of structural balance, implications for speed of austerity). My own take is that, if the Treaty is implemented in an intelligent, cyclically-sensitive manner (consistent with the flexible, holistic interpretation laid out in the “six pack” regulations), the new fiscal framework will be a positive force, helping Ireland and other European countries to gradually exit from high debt levels and avoid destabilising pro-cyclical fiscal policies in the future. Calibrating the optimal speed of fiscal adjustment at national and European levels is no easy task, especially in periods of shifting macroeconomic conditions, and we may expect many future debates about the balance between austerity and growth in delivering the fiscal targets laid out in the Treaty. Indeed, the recent resurgence in European discussion of growth initiatives is a good example of the type of policy rebalancing that will periodically occur in plotting the fiscal trajectory that balances short-term growth concerns with medium-term fiscal sustainability. (The Treaty does not mandate any particular mix of fiscal actions and growth actions to attain the target outcomes.)

In any event, even before the EU/IMF bailout, Ireland was already planning to introduce some type of fiscal framework along these lines and the Treaty is really a marginal addition relative to existing European commitments. Importantly, having fiscal rules built into domestic legislation should improve local accountability relative to purely European regulations.

Moreover, the Fiscal Treaty is a pre-requisite for other important reforms of the euro system. Shared responsibility for the resolution of banking crises, eurobonds and joint fiscal initiatives (such as the European Stability Mechanism, expanded EU or EIB investment programmes, EU-level unemployment insurance) all build on a common platform of sustainable national fiscal policies, as does ECB support for national banking systems and sovereign debt markets. While there is clearly a strong desire for a “big bang” approach by which all of these reforms are simultaneously introduced, that is not currently on offer and does not reflect the incrementalism that characterises the EU approach to institutional reform. Rather, it is more realistic for the Irish government to engage in the hard slog of ensuring that the Fiscal Treaty is quickly followed by progress on these other fronts. To take one example, the euro-nomics group (of which I am a member) advocates the rapid introduction of ‘European Safe Bonds’ which are a type of eurobond that do not require time-consuming Treaty revisions.

Over the last month, the referendum debate has been much broader than the narrow terms of the Fiscal Treaty. As always, a Referendum provides an opportunity for a segment of the electorate to vent disappointment and anger at the current government and widespread economic distress. However, to quote Colm McCarthy, “anger is not a policy.”

Still, two interesting alternative policy visions have emerged from the No campaign. Attracting support from elements on both Left and Right, one theme has been that a No vote would strengthen the Irish government’s bargaining position in reducing the burden of bank-related debt. This argument has two limitations.

First, it fails to accept that the European governance system relies on applying common principles to all member states – bilateral “interest-based’’ bargaining between Ireland and European institutions / fellow member states is at variance with core principles of European integration. Rather, Ireland has a better chance of success through sustained lobbying for a change in European policy (most obviously, the sharing of the fiscal costs of resolving systemic banking crises). Although progress on this agenda has been frustratingly slow, the increasing urgency of addressing similar banking problems in Spain provides extra impetus behind the broad coalition (including the IMF) seeking this change.

Second, as a practical matter, a No vote would not deliver a radical change in Ireland’s negotiating stance, since the current government is in place for the next four years and there is no sign that it would overturn its current strategy. How, exactly, does a No vote force a change in the government’s strategy?

Rather, the most coherent version of this alternative policy narrative accepts that there is a substantial risk that Ireland’s bluff would be called and Ireland enters an antagonistic relationship with our European partners. Such an isolationist strategy is especially risky for a high-income country with an economic structure that is deeply embedded into global financial and trade networks. A badly-played hand could map in significant output and financial losses over time that would be far greater than any reduction in the debt servicing burden obtained through a disorderly default.

In the end, then, the narrow Fiscal Treaty debate can be framed in terms of a broader debate about Ireland’s future relationship with Europe. Although there is much to be done at a European level to build a more stable eurosystem, it seems to me that there are more downside risks to pursuing an isolationist alternative path.

After wavering for some time, Deputy Shane Ross has now publicly taken a No position on the Treaty. (See Sunday Independent article here.)   His position is that he is withholding judgement until he sees later growth-focused elements, and takes it that there would be another opportunity to vote on the complete package later. 

While this is a coherent position, I think it is worthwhile to stand back and recall the genesis of the fiscal compact.   The euro zone crisis was spinning out of control late last year, with runs on the sovereign bonds of Italy and Spain.  (The crisis has flared up again recently with the renewed uncertainties in Greece.)   It became ever clearer that the euro zone might not survive unless stronger mutual insurance mechanisms were developed.   Understandably enough, the euro zone countries most at risk of having to make positive net transfers under such mechanisms wanted some degree of assurance that all euro zone countries would follow reasonably disciplined policies, both to limit the expected value of the contingent liability and to minimise inevitable moral hazard.   Politicians in stronger countries also needed a degree of political cover in order to convince their electorates to take on large risks.  

For the most part, it was evident that stronger commitments to mutual discipline would have to lead that strengthening of the mutual insurance mechanisms, but the logic was clear.   In the event, the actual fiscal compact did not go much beyond what countries had already signed up to under the revised Stability and Growth Pact, but it did attempt to strengthen domestic ownership by introducing domestic enforcement mechanisms for the already existing structural balance rule.   Recent events in Spain have brought the possibility of more centralised bank resolution, deposit insurance and supervision onto the agenda as part of this process. 

An often heard complaint in the debate that the commitment to develop these mutual insurance (and related growth) measures are too vague – hence Deputy Ross’s position.    But it is interesting that where the linkage is made explicit – i.e. access to a scaled up ESM – it is considered a “blackmail” clause.  

Not surprisingly, the Treaty debate has ranged widely – the impacts of austerity measures, the implications for post-2015 fiscal adjustment of the existing SGP rules, the nature of additional commitments made under the Treaty, access to alternative sources funding if the Treaty is rejected, etc.   An unintended positive spinoff is that voters are now much better informed on fiscal issues – even if sick to the teeth from hearing about them.   But in the few days remaining before the vote, and with the euro zone again in turmoil, it is important to bring focus back to the core purpose of the compact. 

Advance warning: This post will only be of interest to those who have read the DeLong and Summers paper.

As has been referenced on this blog a number of times, the recent paper by Brad DeLong and Larry Summers has had a significant impact on the debate over optimal fiscal adjustment in a depressed economy.    Although the authors themselves note that the balance of arguments may be quite different in a non-creditworthy economy, the paper is still important to our debate (see also here and here).   

The key innovation in the paper is to incorporate the fiscal implications of potential “hysteresis effects.”  Put simply, these effects refer to long-lasting effects on future output – and thus on the future fiscal position – of fiscal adjustment measures today that reduce today’s output.   For example, the loss of a job due to weaker growth this year could have long-lasting fiscal implications if it makes it harder for the person losing their job to gain employment in the future. 

A striking conclusion in the paper is that, under what appear to be a relatively undemanding set of conditions, an expansion of government spending (or alternatively not engaging in some planned expenditure cut) could be self-financing from a long-term fiscal perspective.    Put another way, fiscal expansion could bring about improvement rather than disimprovement in a country’s underlying creditworthiness.  Thus, fiscal adjustment could be self-defeating from a creditworthiness perspective.   Given the influence of their argument, it is important to look closely at the assumptions that underlie this result. 

At 1,395 words, Title III of the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance is a very short document by official standards.  The Fiscal Compact contains just six articles and 11 paragraphs.  Understanding what is in the Fiscal Compact should not be difficult but there continues to be significant misrepresentations of the what the provisions actually mean.

As a response to the causes and consequences of the current crisis the Fiscal Compact is wholly inadequate.   From an Irish perspective it is true that “had the the Fiscal Compact been in place since 1999 it could not and would not have prevented the crisis in Ireland”.  It is possible that, in the run-up to the crisis, a greater adherence to the rules across Europe would have created some additional fiscal space to deal with the downturn but this leniency did not cause the crisis.

As regards the ongoing policy response to the crisis, the Fiscal Compact will make little difference.  At present 23 out of the EU27 (and 13 of the EZ17) are in the Excessive Deficit Procedure so even if the Fiscal Compact is torn up it would not lead to a significant change in policy.

However, when assessing whether the crisis could have been prevented it is important to realise that the Fiscal Compact only covers some aspects of the EU framework on economic policy. For example, the Compact does not mention the 3% of GDP overall deficit limit that was introduced in the Protocol on the EDP in the Maastricht Treaty.

The Compact also excludes some elements of the ‘Six Pack’ introduced last year.  From an Irish perspective, two additions worth considering are: