Category: Uncategorized

Political Booms, Financial Crises

Helios Herrera, Guillermo Ordonez, Christoph Trebesch

CESifo Working Paper No. 4935 (August 2014)

Download available here.

Abstract:
We show that political booms, measured by the rise in governments’ popularity, predict financial crises above and beyond other better-known early warning indicators, such as credit booms. This predictive power, however, only holds in emerging economies. We show that governments in emerging economies are more concerned about their reputation and tend to ride the short-term popularity benefits of weak credit booms rather than implementing politically costly corrective policies that would help prevent potential crises. We provide evidence of the relevance of this reputation mechanism.

Mario Draghi is sure to be quizzed about this Jackson Hole speech at tomorrow’s ECB press conference.

I outline the shifting macro policy debate in Europe (and the implications for the Irish budget) in this Irish Times op-ed.

Also, David McWilliams writes about this optimistic prognosis for the Irish economy here.

The new issue of the International Journal of Central Banking includes this article by Robert Kelly and Kieran McQuinn – here.

The media faithfully reported Eurostat’s flash estimate of yoy inflation in the Eurozone at 0.3% for August on Friday last. The yoy rate says merely that prices were 0.3% higher in August than they had been twelve months previously. Just two pieces of information are employed – today’s number and the number twelve months earlier. The intervening eleven pieces of info are ignored.

What do these eleven observations have to say? Well it is not pretty. The index was unchanged over eight months, and actually fell over four months. The country-by-country numbers are only available for July. Here is what happened over the four months from March.

HICP July % Change over March

Belgium         -1.5                  Germany       +0.2

Greece           -0.8                  Estonia          +0.5

Spain             -1.0                  Ireland           +0.1

Italy               -1.6                 Cyprus           +2.2

Luxembourg    -0.5                  Latvia            +0.8

Austria           -0.5                  Netherlands   +0.1

Portugal         -0.1                  Slovenia        +0.2

Finland          -0.3                  Malta             +4.1

France            -0.4                  Slovakia        +0.2

Half of the 18 countries experienced price falls, half saw increases. The weighted average Eurozone inflation rate over these four most recent months was -0.5%. No large country saw a significant increase but two, Spain and Italy, saw prices fall 1% and 1.6%, hence the weighted average decline.

Using twelve-month rates is well-established but it is hardly best practice. Since the Spring it is clear that the Eurozone has been experiencing a widespread and in some cases rapid fall in prices. With nominal interest rates as low as they can go, and zero real growth, the feared deflation has already commenced. It could even be too late to do too little.

The economic challenges facing Germany are reported in this FT Analysis article.