here.
The only centralised macroeconomic policy target in the Eurozone is the ECB’s 2% inflation number. Today’s flash estimate from Eurostat shows a price decline of 0.2% over twelve months. The index for the Eurozone has in fact been flat now for eighteen months – today’s number of 117.70 compares to 117.61 in June 2013.
The undershoot would be a concern in a proper monetary union operating at the ZLB: real rates are too high. In the Eurozone, which is not a proper monetary union, just a common currency area with heavily indebted states, it creates two additional problems.
The real burden of debt is not eroding at the advertised rate. If the ECB had delivered a 2% rate since December 2008, at which point debt build-up in the periphery was already manifest, the index today would be 121.6 rather than 117.7. If the ECB fails to get the rate of inflation up to 2% for another couple of years as QE-pessimists fear, the failure to hit the inflation target could add 5% or 6% to real debt burdens of sovereigns which have already had to resort to official lenders.
The second problem is the absence of any other centralised macro policy instrument, if you discount, as you should, Jean Claude Juncker’s leverage wheeze. The instrument that has fallen short is the only one available.
The inflation target should now be Olivier Blanchard’s 4% rather than the ECB’s 2%, if only to make up lost ground. If you believe that the ECB cannot or will not deliver on the inflation rate, the alternative is illegal: a fiscal expansion financed by the central bank, the kind of thing they do in real monetary unions.
Barry Eichengreen will talk about this new book in the Ed Burke Theatre (TCD Arts Block), 9am-10am on Tuesday January 20th. All welcome!
- First and only systematic comparative analysis of the two great economic and financial crises of the last 100 years
- Provides an integrated account of experience in the US and Europe, which together constituted the epicenter of the recent crisis and were similarly at the center of the Great Depression
- Economic analysis is leavened by anecdote and personalities, with key figures in both crises introduced and humanized
- Shows how the history of the Great Depression shaped how policy makers perceived and responded to the Global Credit Crisis, but equally how the recent crisis will in turn re-shape how we see the Depression
I will present a paper on this topic to SSISI on Thursday January 15th at 6pm at the Royal Irish Academy (discussants – Greg Connor and Dermot Coates). All welcome!
The Irish Central Bank is planning to impose macroprudential risk regulation on the domestic banking sector (see here). The general approach of the Irish Central Bank has been widely welcomed by economists, although the specifics of the proposals are controversial.
John Cotter (UCD) and I are planning a conference in September 2015 on macroprudential regulation, the fifth in our series of FMCC conferences on financial risk and regulation. Macroprudential regulation is fairly new, and there are many unanswered questions. Can macroprudential constraints on credit be reliably attuned with the business cycle and/or credit cycle? Are a-cyclical constraints on credit safer and more reliable than attempts at anti-cyclical ones? Should regulators take account of market imperfections, such as the poor performance of the Irish property development industry and the high costs of new housing construction in Ireland, in setting constraints on credit growth?
Macroprudential regulation has particular importance in Ireland, a small open economy buffeted by credit flows from bigger neighbours. The failure to impose macroprudential regulatory control on the Irish banking sector was a central cause of the Irish financial crisis of 2008-2011. During 2000-2007, within a flawed eurozone currency system, a politically-neutered Irish Central Bank ignored a runaway inflow of foreign credit into the Irish banking system. This massive credit inflow undermined the stability of the Irish financial system and led to the disastrous failure of the Irish domestic banking sector.
There is a varied range of views among economists on macroprudential regulation. This is clear in the responses to the Irish Central Bank’s policy discussion document. Three thoughtful responses come from David Duffy and Kieran McQuinn (both at ESRI) here, Ronan Lyons (TCD) here, and Karl Whelan (UCD) here. (For full disclosure, my own response to the Irish Central Bank discussion document is here.) Lyons recommends fixed, a-cyclical credit controls whereas Duffy and McQuinn argue for dynamic, anti-cyclical controls. Duffy and McQuinn stress the need for more new housing in light of fast Irish demographic growth, and the positive role of high housing prices (aided by bank credit growth) in eliciting an adequate supply response. Lyons argues that excessive bank credit growth should not be used as a hidden subsidy for a cost-inefficient building industry.
Lyons makes a case for no loan-to-income (LTI) constraint, instead relying only upon a loan-to-value (LTV) constraint for macroprudential credit control. This contrasts sharply with the view of Karl Whelan who argues for LTI-only macroprudential controls in the current Irish case. Duffy and McQuinn advocate for both controls. I share the view of Duffy and McQuinn. Lyons does not consider the importance of dual-trigger mortgage default in Ireland (that is, mortgage default which is triggered jointly by income stress and negative equity). The amount of Irish mortgage arrears is likely to remain large and volatile, and this is a key potential source of market instability. Both initial LTI and initial LTV ratios are linked to subsequent mortgage default probabilities, so both should be controlled.
There are certainly many points for discussion, which should make for an interesting conference! A formal Call for Papers will follow shortly – if there are particular themes or panels that we should include, feel free to mention them in the comments thread below.