Category: Banking Crisis

Kenny Returns from Brussels

Enda Kenny has returned from Brussels without any agreement yet to reduce Ireland’s interest rate (Irish Times story here and FT story here). Not surprisingly, Mr. Kenny wasn’t too keen to give up Ireland’s 12.5% corporate tax rate in return for a mere one percent reduction in the interest rate on the EU loans.

To my mind, there is a lot of shadow boxing going on here. The EFSF is an EU institution and it cannot set the terms of its lending on a bilateral basis with individual countries. I’d be surprised if thee tradeoff between these two elements ended up being as explicit as suggested in this weekend’s news stories.

I think the business about interest rates and corporation tax rates has a feel of fiddling while Rome burns. More interesting were Kenny’s comments about the ECB:

“I made the point that for me to conclude a deal here I need to be much clearer in respect of elements related to the ECB,” he said.

“I spoke to president Jean-Claude Trichet and the Minister for Finance will be meeting with him on Monday. He has agreed that I should meet with him before the [next EU summit on March] 24th/25th to discuss a number of issues relating to the ECB and its positions.

“Before the council meets again in two weeks time we hope to be in a much clear position insofar as Ireland’s position is concerned and continue on our progress arising from the mandate that I’ve got about an improvement in the terms of the package for Ireland,” the Taoiseach said.

He continued: “In the next couple of weeks I expect to be in a much clearer position in respect of the state of what we have inherited is in respect of Ireland’s position.

“We’ll have had discussions with the ECB in respect of a number of matters. We’ll have a much clearer picture of what’s emerging from the stress tests and as the principle has now been accepted and implemented of a reduction in the interest rate I . . . would regard that actually as the beginning of a process.”

I reckon they could fill Croke Park if they sold tickets for those discussions with the ECB.

Irish Banks

The FT gives its view of the current state of play in this article.

Klau on the eurozone mess

According to Thomas Klau, “the assumption that the coordination of 17 national policies backed up by rules and sanctions can deliver” is “patently false”: “the choice must ultimately be between discarding the euro or taking the plunge into a federal structure complete with Eurobonds,  a common set of core policies,  a bigger and more flexible EU budget, and so on.” If that really is the choice — and one can debate this of course — then my money is on the former, especially given the way the current banking and debt crisis is playing out in both core and periphery. You can read the full article here.

The Programme for Government 2011-2016

The newly-agreed programme for government is available here.

Why the New Minister for Finance Should be a Default Nut

The first-order policy challenge the new government faces is to restore the creditworthiness of the State and the banks. Without market access, Ireland becomes effectively a permanent ward of the international community, continuously vulnerable to withdrawal of support, and thus in a persistent state of insecurity that undermines recovery.

To say that Ireland is not creditworthy is really just to say that markets put a high probability on an Irish default. At the moment, the cost-benefit analysis does not look favourable to a pre-emptive unilateral default, not least because of the likely backlash by official creditors including the ECB. But the high probability markets are placing on an Irish default means that the markets believe the cost-benefit calculation will shift. This could be because the perceived benefits of a future default are relatively high (say because of the high marginal cost of austerity measures), or that the costs of future default are relatively low (say because the official funders will condone and even facilitate future debt restructurings).

This places us in a bind. If it turns out that we do later have to default, it is best that it comes with as low a cost as possible. But the potential for a low-cost future default makes it impossible to raise longer-term funding now, effectively trapping us outside the markets.

Suppose, however, we could somehow raise the social costs of default (say by offering collateral on any new borrowing). This would be a double-edged sword. It would help us to credibly commit to avoid default and thus lower the market risk premium. But it would leave us facing a worse outcome in the event the benefits of default turn out to be high and the default decision is the sensible course.

But now suppose we introduce a political cost of default – costs that fall specifically on the politicians who make the default decision. This allows for a more credible commitment to avoid default while not imposing unnecessary additional social costs in the case where default actually occurs. For reasons similar to those for appointing an “inflation nut” to head a central bank, it could make sense to appoint a “default nut” as finance minister — someone who sees massive political (or even personal) cost in defaulting. The credibility of the anti-default stance could be enhanced by a promise to resign in the event default occurs – or even better to join a monastery/convent should the terrible event ever come to pass! (For this to work there would also have to be political costs to getting rid of a finance minister that refused to default, or broader political costs to the government as a whole.) One drawback of putting a “default nut” in charge of finance is that default might be or excessively delayed or avoided altogether when it is the right course. However, given how the perception of a soft restructuring down the road can trap a country outside the markets, this risk of an excessive ex post default aversion could well be a price worth paying.

The candidates for minister for finance should be falling over one another to signal to Mr. Kenny and Mr. Gilmore that default is anathema to their very being.