The Irish Economy

The response to Brian Lucey’s article has been quite astonishing (over 300 comments at last count!).   Although clearly we don’t all agree, the debate has been enlightening – and entertaining – thanks to Brian and the many excellent participants on this site.

But with all the excitement over default, I think we passed over too quickly the important set of IMF fiscal policy papers that Philip linked to on Wednesday.   The papers provide a useful analytical perspective on Ireland’s fiscal challenge, which I think could frame a more productive discussion on fiscal (and indeed banking) policy. (more…)

The IMF has released three major studies on the fiscal situation in advanced economies.

The summary is here, while the papers are available at:

• Long-Term Trends in Public Finances in the G-7 Economies

• Default in Today’s Advanced Economies: Unnecessary, Undesirable, and Unlikely

• Fiscal Space

Jean Claude Trichet’s Jackson Hole speech is here. This bit caught my eye:

The economy, it is sometimes argued, is at present too fragile and thus consolidation efforts should be postponed or even new fiscal stimulus measures added. As I pointed out recently, I am sceptical about this line of argument. Indeed, the strict Ricardian view may provide a more reasonable central estimate of the likely effects of consolidation. For a given expenditure, a shift from borrowing to taxation should have no real demand effects as it simply replaces future tax burden with current one.

The written version of the speech cites two papers by Robert Barro as supporting evidence for this position.

I think it’s worth noting that the Ricardian equivalence idea put forward by Barro—that consumers see deficits and taxes as basically the same thing—has been tested many many times. And the general consensus on this, as I understand it, is that there is very little evidence to support the idea.

Moreover, though the idea works in one very simplified model set up, there are lots of reasons why the proposition does not hold in reality (liquidity constraints, people having finite lives, people not having rational expectations, uncertainty about the path of government spending—see this extract from David Romer’s textbook.)  Very few economists emerge from graduate schools believing in the Ricardian equivalence idea.

There are, of course, lots of arguments in favour of European governments setting out their long-term plans for the restoration of fiscal stability. However, it is a pity to see economic theories that are known to have little support regularly rolled out as arguments for fiscal austerity.

Trichet follows up on his Ricardian equivalence comments by arguing that expansionary fiscal contractions “are not just a theoretical curiosity” with the footnotes citing the old Giavazzi and Pagno paper with its two examples: Denmark in the mid-1980s and, of course, Ireland in the late 1980s. I’ve already said my bit about this, so I won’t repeat it. Suffice to say, this is pretty weak evidence that Trichet is serving up.

The Irish Times reports:

For example, the latest official breakdown on the 423 highest earners in the State showed that for 189 individuals who earned €500,000 or more in 2008, the average tax rate was 19.86 per cent.

I’m afraid this isn’t true. This report does not relate to the 423 highest earners in the State, as I’ve written about here, here and here. It only relates to a subset of the highest earners who would have paid less than 20 percent because of tax loopholes but who are not doing so now because of the introduction of a minimum rate.

To be fair, I don’t blame the journalists because the relevant document is so poorly written.  At this point, however, I really think the folks in the Department of Finance responsible for this report should consider issuing an official clarification.

Update: In comments, Joseph O’Toole reckons I’m being mean to the Department of Finance because this is a Revenue Commissioners report. Well, I found the report here on the Department’s website, which suggests that they are responsible for its release. But, yes, the report is put together by Revenue Commissioners staff.  So let me rephrase my point: Whoever is responsible for this report might think about issuing a clarification.

De Volkskrant has a piece on Ireland, transgoogled here.

They start by saying that Ireland was a role model for austerity at the start of the year, but is now a reason for concern. They give two reasons, the first of which is the unknown but large cost of saving the banks. Secondly, they do not believe that the government will deliver in the next budget.

Standard and Poor’s have downgraded Irish sovereign debt from AA to AA- and their outlook for the rating (not the economy) is negative. S&P cite the rising cost of the banking bailout as in their statement and project a debt-GDP ratio of 113% in 2012.

On the banking costs, they state

We have increased our estimate of the cumulative total cost to the government of providing support to the banking sector from about €80 billion (50% of GDP; see “Ireland Rating Lowered To ‘AA’ On Potential Fiscal Cost Of Weakening Banking Sector Asset Quality; Outlook Negative,” published June 8, 2009, on RatingsDirect), to €90 billion (58% of GDP) …

We have increased our estimate of the cost to the Irish government of recapitalizing financial institutions to €45 billion-€50 billion (29%-32% of GDP) from €30 billion-€35 billion (19%-22% of GDP). 

Our estimate includes two main components: the upper end of our estimate of the capital we expect to be provided by the Irish government to improve the solvency of financial institutions, and the liabilities we expect the government to incur in exchange for impaired loans acquired from the banks.

Irish ten year bond yields have risen above 5.5 percent this morning and the spread against their German equivalent, at about 340 basis points, is the highest it has been in recent years. The NTMA have objected to the downgrade, arguing that S&P were using an “extreme estimate” of the cost of the banking bailout.

An interesting little scrap has broken out between An Taisce and the NRA. As reported in the Irish Times yesterday, An Taisce has accused the NRA of using false data, while the Irish Independent reports that the NRA dismisses the criticism.

The criticism by An Taisce refers to traffic projections which are now seven years old, and the fact that traffic volumes have been falling. The NRA counters that roads are build with a longer time horizon in mind. While I agree with the NRA that roads are build with a longer time horizon in mind, it is nevertheless true that the projections are seriously out of date and that the starting position has changed significantly. Furthermore, there are at least some schemes, which are grossly over designed. An Taisce points to  a refusal for planning permission for a dual carriageway between Bohola and Ballina, because the NRA apparently failed to support the project on traffic grounds.

Unfortunately gold-plating of projects is not unusual. In the ESRI Mid-Term Evaluation of NDP 2000-2006 we pointed out that “roads with capacity of 55,500 AADT, or anywhere near it, appear to be a significant overdesign for the numerous lightly-trafficked sections of the N8 and N9″. Such schemes cannot pass a reasonable cost-benefit analysis when compared to more appropriately sized schemes. Unfortunately, the lesson does not seem to have been learned and the tax payer is expected to pay for overdesign again (the fact that some of the schemes are PPPs is irrelevant here as these also have to be paid for by tax payers).

Take the example of the N2, for which there are two proposed schemes in the system. I have already referred to the idiotic scheme to by-pass Slane where the key issue could be simply dealt with via a HGV ban.

The second scheme is in North Monaghan, where a by-pass of Monaghan and Emyvale to dual carriageway standard is being pursued. Interestingly Monaghan has already been by-passed and anyone who knows the road also knows that there is no danger of congestion except through Emyvale (for which a by-pass is likely to be supported by some analysis). Traffic counts bear this out - average total volumes (north and southbound) for 2010 amount to 5,413 AADT. Why then are we building for 35,000 AADT - almost seven times the current volume? Further south, the section between Castleblaney and Clontibret has been upgraded to 2+1, and further south still between the M1 and Castleblaney a wide 2 lane road is perfectly sufficient to achieve the target level of service (80km/h) - both of these sections of road carry a higher level of traffic than that, which is supposed to be upgraded to dual-carriageway standard. 

The construction costs of a dual carriageway are 82% higher (according to the NRA Road Needs Study) than for a wide 2 lane road - can we really afford such goldplated schemes?

The speech by Minister Lenihan is available here.

When I was a junior economist in short trousers, the first research I ever did was inspired by Ireland’s successful 1987-89 fiscal adjustment.  Many international researchers looked at Ireland and decided that our successful adjustment stemmed from consumers stepping into the breach filled by the government spending cuts. The story was that increased consumer confidence, fueled by expectations of lower future taxes, was the key to the recovery.

From the research I did on this topic (both on my own and with John Bradley) I came away fairly convinced that this was not what had happened. Rather, the 1987 boom seemed to be fueled more by strong exports to the UK thanks to Nigel Lawson’s tax cutting exercise.

However, Ireland’s 1987 experience continues to pop up in discussions of fiscal austerity. I have to admit that I’ve not been too impressed by Alberto Alesina’s work (here and here) on how fiscal adjustment can be expansionary—work that has had a lot of influence this year. Well, sure enough, Paul Krugman now cites work from Arjun Jayadev and Mike Konczal showing that the only country that ever cut its way to growth in a slump was, you guessed it, Ireland in 1987. The power of this datapoint endures.

His Beijing speech is available here.

I know that the NTMA have already admitted as much but just in case there were any remaining doubts that Eurostat are counting the promissory notes towards this year’s budget deficit, the picture below is a screencap from Eurostat’s publicly available database. Yes, our deficit in the the first quarter of 2010 was 36.51% of GDP. I believe the figure for the year will be about 20%. (Yes it’s my first time using a picture! Perhaps now you can see why.)

In this new paper, I argue that the current crisis calls for a re-assessment of the optimal conduct of macroeconomic policies during non-crisis normal times. In particular, the risk and costs of crises can be mitigated by macroeconomic policies that lean against the wind in the face of cyclical, sectoral and external shocks. In this paper, I discuss the challenges involved in deploying fiscal policy in pursuit of a broad definition of macroeconomic stabilisation. The main policy conclusion is that pro-stabilisation fiscal policies are likely to be more effective if fiscal policy is determined under a formal fiscal framework that combines a set of fiscal rules and a substantive role for an independent fiscal policy council.  (Forthcoming in Nordic Economic Policy Review.)

For an economy that’s supposedly in recovery, the unemployment figures seem to be puzzlingly weak. The July Live Register figures show an increase in the standardised unemployment rate from 13.4% in June to 13.7% in July. Slightly less negative were the July exchequer figures: Tax revenues had fallen from being on target in April to 1.6% behind target in June. The July figures reversed that trend to be only 1.4% behind target.

Still, both sets of figures raise a question. We keep hearing about how GDP figures are supposed to be coming in better than the assumptions penciled into the last budget: How is that to be reconciled with tax revenues being behind budget target and the unemployment rate coming in higher?  (The budget assumed a year average unemployment rate of 13.2%, which is the average for the year so far with the figure now moving in the wrong direction.)

Update: I was interested to hear Minister Eamon O’Cuiv explain the increase in the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate on seasonal factors. Sure unemployment always goes up in July, I heard him say on the radio. You’d think the CSO boffins would have factored that in to their calculations …

I wrote a couple of posts (here and here) earlier this year about a Department of Finance release that discusses the impact of restrictions on the use of tax breaks for higher earners via the imposition of a minimum effective tax rate. I pointed out that the document is very poorly worded and leaves itself open to being misinterpreted.

Well, the latest edition of this release is out and it’s still got the same poor wording and it’s still being misinterpreted. I had missed the release when it came out but realised that the DoF’s poor wording had struck again when I heard contributors to Sam Smyth’s Sunday morning radio show discussing the report and saying how puzzled they were at how few people seemed to be earning large salaries (e.g. puzzlement at the idea that only 23 people earned over €2 million in 2008).

Let’s recap on this report. The report does not purport to be a full accounting of the tax paid by rich people in Ireland. Rather, it only covers those who would have paid less than the minimum effective tax rates that have been introduced. So, the whole report relates only to the 423 people who earned over €500,000 and were subject to the minimum effective tax restriction.

The document should emphasise throughout that these 423 people represent only a small subset of those earning over half a million euros in 2008: Unpublished information from the Revenue Commissioners published in the Irish Times last year (nice table here) showed that there were 5,393 cases of people earning over that amount. However, the report does very little to emphasise this point, leaving itself open to misinterpretation.

Sure enough, many people reading the Sunday Tribune today would have been apalled to read this piece about the Department’s “analysis of high-income earners” informing them the report showed “most of those earning more than €500,000 paid tax at a rate between 15% and 20%” and also providing other estimated tax rates that are not at all representative of the rates being paid by average high earners. For example, the figures in the Irish Times table show that the correct figure for the average tax rate paid by those earning over half a million is 32%. Remember also that this doesn’t include PRSI and that these individuals are now paying an additional 6 percent levy on income over €175,000.

I’m not saying there isn’t room to raise more tax from the rich or that tax reliefs shouldn’t be closed but it hardly helps public debate about this issue when the Department issues documents that are so easily misinterpreted.

Update: Ian Guider who wrote the piece for the Tribune linked to above has written to me to point out that the piece mentions 423 individuals and so he reckons it should be clear that all subsequent statements in his article refer only to a small subset of high earning individuals.

The government has released its revised National Development Plan for the period to 2016.   The documentation includes a short leaflet, Investing for Growth and Jobs: Infrastructure Investment Priorities 2010 – 2016.   With a bit of chutzpah, the document claims the 40 percent cut in capital spending as “stimulus” for the economy.   The emphasis is on new priorities and not on the overall cuts.   Fortunately, the Department of Finance has also released Infrastructure Investment Priorities 2010 – 2016: A Financial Framework, which makes a more sober case for the shift in strategy (see, in particular, Chapters 2 & 3).   The arguments of Colm McCarthy for just-in-time infrastructure provision (based on the time value of money) and more broadly for cost-benefit analysis – as championed on this site and elsewhere by Edgar Morgenroth – would appear to have been influential in the overall approach.   Of course, the precarious state of the public finances looms large behind the change in strategy.  (more…)

Karl Whelan makes a convincing case against the idea that a fiscal stimulus would lower the deficit (see Unpleasant Fiscal Arithmetic).    But there is another fiscal free lunch idea that I see as even more influential—and probably just as wrong.  This is the idea that discretionary fiscal contractions increase economic growth, which in turn reinforces the improvement in the deficit.   The key mechanisms behind what is sometimes called the “German view” are Ricardian-type expectations effects and a reduced risk premium on borrowing (the latter recently emphasised in ESRI Recovery Scenarios paper).    I doubt that there are many Irish economists who would claim to hold this view if pushed.  However, it seems to me to be implicit in the widely held view that a more front-loaded fiscal adjustment will speed economic recovery.  (more…)

As has been widely reported the Minister for Finance has established a Review Group on State Assets that is chaired by Colm McCarthy.

The terms of reference are:

While most comments in the media have interpreted the focus on asset disposals to refer only to privatisation, it is perfectly possible that the various state companies hold assets that might not be essential for the efficient running of these businesses and thus could be disposed of without privatisation.

In relation to privatisation it will be important not only to consider the short-run gain in funds through the sale of assets, but the longer-run impact on the competitiveness of the economy. Long-run considerations should include the loss of control of national strategic assets that would result from a sale. This might be addressed by keeping the key infrastructures such as networks in public ownership.

In some cases it might also be useful to consider a long-term lease as an alternative to an outright sale of assets, which will also yield revenue up-front but avoids the ’selling off of family silver’. Joint ownership is another option.

Looking through the list of assets to be reviewed it is hard to ignore the differences in ownership patterns with many other countries. Electricity generation, ports and airports are private in many countries.

Writing in today’s Irish Times, Ashoka Mody argues for the need to introduce a special resolution regime for banks as well as “fiscal benchmarks and supporting rules, along with a technical voice in the form of “fiscal councils” to evaluate budgetary risks.”

Mr. Mody is assistant director in the European department of the International Monetary Fund and has lead the IMF’s article for team that has visited Ireland in recent years. While Mody’s senior IMF status makes him worth listening to, it’s also worth noting that he has a considerable research record as an economist including this interesting work on the effects of budgetary institutions.

One by-product of Paul Krugman’s latest intervention on Ireland is that it will provide further ammunition for the many people who believe the government should abandon fiscal austerity and provide a stimulus package of new spending to boost the economy. Stimulus advocates believe that budget cuts are self-defeating and that, by contrast, a stimulus package will pay for itself and actually improve our budgetary situation.

I know that the majority of Irish economists don’t agree with this idea but perhaps we’re not doing a very good job at communicating why, so here’s a brief explanation.

(more…)

Paul Krugman criticises the ESRI’s Recovery Scenarios paper:

What the careless reader might miss, however, is the fact that the policy conclusions are not, in fact, derived from the analysis — they come out of thin air. The authors simply assert that more austerity now would lead to a lower risk premium and hence higher growth, based on no evidence I can see.

This criticism appears to relate to the paragraph on page 41 of the report starting with “Recent experience ..”

Two aspects of this criticism strike me as unfair.

First, the assertion that Krugman refers to appears to be the following concluding sentence:

It also raises the question as to whether a more rapid fiscal adjustment than currently planned would have a more beneficial outcome for the economy. 

This seems to be pretty far from an assertion. Rather it flags this idea as something to consider. Krugman seems to be jumping on the ESRI for what it is little more than a speculative remark.

Second, in relation to the “based on no evidence that I can see” comment, I’d note that the relevant paragraph contains the following sentence:

This means that action to reduce borrowing, which would otherwise still be deflationary, could actually increase domestic activity if it produced a sufficient reduction in the risk premium (Alesina, 2010).

Now I’m guessing that Krugman has no time for the analysis in Alesina, 2010 (and he may be correct in this assessment) but it’s still worth noting that the ESRI did cite evidence from a Harvard economist when making the supposed assertion.

What seems to be happening here is that the ESRI-bashing is just a small element in Krugman’s greater campaign of opposing austerity in the US and Germany (with which I’m sympathetic.)  However, it’s worth recalling that last year, Krugman noted about Ireland that “there isn’t much disagreement about the need for fiscal austerity. As far as responding to the recession goes, Ireland appears to be really, truly without options” and referred to an “Irish-type fiscal straitjacket.”

I’d be surprised if Krugman’s assessment of the bond market’s attitude to Ireland has changed much since then: The spread over bunds of the Irish ten-year bond was 282 basis points yesterday versus 293 the day Krugman’s Erin go Broke column was published.

So while kicking around a little research institute his readers have never heard of may seem to provide a nice example-de-jour of crazy people advocating Herbert Hoover economics, in truth it’s likely that even Paul Krugman doesn’t really believe Ireland is in a position to abandon austerity.

My prediction earlier this week is now supported by the Times (and again in more detail) and Independent.

I would agree that the focus should be spending cuts rather than tax increases.

However, I would also argue that taxes need to be reformed too. Particularly, I would use the revenues of property taxes and water charges to reduce income taxes — as that would help to price Ireland back into the export and FDI markets.

I have also called for privatisation of particular state companies and agencies (ESB, CIE, DAA, Bord Bia, RTE, etc). This would only improve the public balance sheet if the market would pay a higher price than the current book value — that is, if a private operator thinks she can improve efficiency. However, privatisation would, in the longer run, improve domestic competition and reduce the costs of energy and transport.

These things will not happen soon as the necessary preparations are slow at best. Some have taken this as me criticising the civil service, particularly the DoF. That would be incorrect. Reform is complex and requires careful consideration — and DoF has its own budget cuts and hiring ban; endless complaints from other departments; the EU and IMF; and NAMA to cope with.

Nevertheless, you should never let a good crisis go to waste — and the public sector should be reformed as well as cut in size.

For those who are interested, our article on the above topic is available here.

I have heard various RTE reporters state in three different reports that despite yesterday’s ratings downgrade, the good news is that Moody’s changed their “outlook for the Irish economy” from “negative to stable”. I know the vast majority of our readers know that this is incorrect. But, just in case anyone has been mislead by this, here’s where Moody’s use the phrase stable:

On 19 July 2010, Moody’s announced its decision to downgrade Ireland’s government bond ratings by one notch to Aa2 from Aa1. Moody’s has changed the outlook on the ratings to stable from negative as we view the upside and downside risks as evenly balanced at the current rating level.

So, you can see that it is the outlook for the rating that has been changed from negative to stable. Having downgraded the debt, they’re saying they’re not anticipating further downgrades now. In relation to the economy, Moody’s said the following:

The Department of Finance has based its debt projections in the SPU on the expectation of growth rates exceeding 4% in the period 2012 to 2014. For the reasons mentioned above, we believe these forecasts to be optimistic and instead expect real growth to range from 2% to 3% from 2011 onwards.

So, for what it’s worth, Moody’s are more pessimistic on growth in the Irish economy than the government.

In an earlier post, I wrote about postponement of water charges and property taxes — partly because proper preparations started too late and have not progressed fast enough. The same is true for privatisation and, it emerged today, for child benefits. It looks increasingly likely that there will be €3 bln worth of spending cuts in the 2011 budget.

Moody’s have downgraded Irish sovereign debt again, this time to Aa2 “blaming banking liabilities, weak growth prospects and a substantial increase in the debt to GDP ratio.”

The FT’s Alphaville people are inclined to blame it on Dan Boyle for his comments to the Sunday Tribune (reported internationally with an interesting headline by Reuters.) I think the FT people are pulling our legs a little attributing such importance to Dan. However, the comments did seem a little strange.

The bond market reaction has been fairly muted, with the ten year sovereign yield ticking up only a few points. However, yields at 5.5 percent are hardly satisfactory. If sustained over a long period, interest rates of this type would make it very difficult to stabilise the fiscal debt.

The Central Bank have released their annual report (press statements from Governor Honohan here and from Chairman of the Regulator Jim Farrell here).  The NTMA has also released its annual report here and its mid-year business review here.

Much of this morning’s media coverage of the latest ESRI Quarterly Economic Commentary (summary here) has focused on the ESRI’s projection that the 2010 general government balance will be a deficit of 19.75 percent of GDP, which is the sum of the ‘underlying’ deficit of 11.5 percent of GDP and the capital transfer into Anglo/INBS of 8.25 percent of GDP.  (Based on the reasonable assumption that Eurostat will adjudicate that the infusions into these banks indeed are capital transfers rather than financial investments.)

This is not really a surprise -  the scale of the bank bailout was announced back in April and the accounting issues were dealt with on this site at that time (see here and here).  In terms of investor sentiment, the bad news should have been incorporated at that time.  Sophisticated investors will understand the distinction between non-recurrent capital transfers and the underlying deficit and also the distinction between accrued liabilities and this year’s funding needs (the use of promissory notes limits the extra funds required this year).

However, beyond the accounting issues, the increase in the government’s liabilities remains a substantial economic and financial cost.  In terms of the trajectory for the public finances,  debt sustainability requires that an increase in liabilities is met over time with a higher primary surplus  - the government will need to raise more taxes and/or cut spending to service the extra liabilities (unless serendipity means that the extra liabilities coincide with a matching upward revision in the forecast for GDP growth).

The next version of the government’s multi-year fiscal framework will need to specify how the opposing forces of the improvement in GDP forecasts and the increase in debt liabilities feed into plans for taxes and spending.

It now looks as if neither property taxes nor water charges will feature in the next budget. Shifting the tax burden from income to property and resource use would provide a welcome stimulus to the economy. That said, water charges need water meters and property taxes need a valuation database — and the government does not appear to have put much thought into these matters since the Commission on Taxation released its recommendations.

The upshot, of course, is that spending will need to be cut further and that income taxes will stay high for longer.

In Irish Economy Note No. 11,  Jim O’Leary writes on the external surveillance of Irish fiscal policy during the boom.

The last week has seen a lot of coverage of the announcement by Brian Lenihan that there will be an external review of the Department of Finance.  Some media responses:

Dan O’Brien

Eddie Molloy