The Subordination of Economic Theory to Society

At Project Syndicate, Schlomo Ben-Ami writes:

Europe, however, has always found it difficult to come to terms with an over-confident, let alone arrogant, Germany. The current political turmoil in Europe shows that, regardless of how sensible Chancellor Angela Merkel’s austerity prescriptions for debt-ridden peripheral Europe might be in the abstract, they resemble a German Diktat. The concern for many is not just Europe’s historic “German problem,” but also that Germany could end up exporting to the rest of Europe the same ghosts of radical politics and violent nationalism that its economic success has transcended at home.

Once the crisis became a sad daily reality for millions of unemployed – particularly for what appears to be a lost generation of young, jobless Europeans – EU institutions also became a target of popular rage. Their inadequacies – embodied in a cumbersome system of governance, and in endless, inconclusive summitry – and their lack of democratic legitimacy are being repudiated by millions of voters throughout the continent.

Europe’s experience has shown that the subordination of society to economic theories is politically untenable. Social vulnerability and frustration at the political system’s failure to provide solutions are the grounds upon which radical movements have always emerged to offer facile solutions.

If "economic theories" is taken to mean the theories of economists, the "subordination of society to economic theories" is not the problem in Europe right now.

The euro project was driven by politicians and businessmen - not economists - from the outset.  In terms of economic theory, giving up autonomous monetary policy is highly problematic, especially in the absence of fiscal union and when labor mobility is limited. 

Moreover, according to economic theory, the "austerity prescriptions" are anything but "sensible."   Economic theory says that these policies are pro-cyclical (i.e., exacerbate the current economic slump) and that the adjustment of economic imbalances through "internal devaluation" is extremely painful.

The underlying motives for the push for austerity in Europe are largely political.  I cannot claim to have any insight about domestic politics in Germany, but the last several years in the United States have demonstrated that interventions grounded in basic economic ideas - counter-cyclical fiscal policy, expansionary monetary policy, and "lender of last resort" financial interventions - can be deeply unpopular.  Even though these policies can deliver what appears to be a (nearly) "free lunch," they are profoundly unappealing to the instinct and intuition of voters.  What the voters ("society") seem to want are economic policies that reward virtue and punish profligacy (last year, Stephen Gordon nicely observed a parallel between German attitudes and the US "Tea Party").

Economists and our theories are far from perfect, but the problem in Europe is not economic theories, or at least it isn't the economic theories of economists.  Europe would be doing much better right now if it was subordinated to economic theory (not the same thing as "technocrats").   The problem is that voters have their own economic theories, grounded in their perceptions of fairness and virtue, and these stand in the way of resolving the crisis.  That is, Ben-Ami has it exactly backward: what is underlying the European crisis is the subordination of economic theories to society.

Update:  Empirical evidence, tweeted by the Economist's Greg Ip:

Apparently many voters mistrust IS-LM. YouGov Economist poll: How stimulate econ? 47%=>gov't infrastructure spending; 46%=> reduce deficit.

And related thoughts in Paul Krugman's blog.

May Employment

The headline numbers from the BLS' May employment report are disappointing.  Employment only rose by 69,000, which is short of the rate needed to keep pace with population growth and technological progress, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.2%.

For reactions, see the Times' David Leonhardt, Free Exchange's Ryan Avent, Mark Thoma and Calculated Risk.

Although the payroll employment number rightly gets higher billing because it comes from a survey of businesses which has a larger sample, its worth noting that the numbers from the survey of households were a bit more encouraging.  According to the household survey, 422,000 more people were employed in May than April, and the reason the unemployment rate rose is that there was an even bigger increase in the labor force, partly reversing the decline in labor force participation. 

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the unemployment rate in May was 7.9%, up from 7.7% in April, and employment rose by 789,000.  That is, May is normally a month with big jumps in both employment and the labor force, which are removed by the seasonal adjustment.

Flo Doesn't Know the Lucas Critique

In the March issue of Automobile magazine, Ezra Dyer recounted his experience with Progressive insurance's "snapshot" system, the latest innovation in trading privacy for money (which we all seem pretty well inured to these days).  Customers who sign up for snapshot receive discounts for "safe driving," which is measured with a device that transmits data to Progressive from your car using the cell network.

Dyer explains:

According to the rules, Snapshot can generate a discount but not a surcharge -- unless you live in Rhode Island. The device logs your speed, but that's not a factor in the calculations because Progressive doesn't know where you are -- you might be doing 65 mph in a 70 zone or 45 mph through a car wash (although one wonders if a few trips into the triple digits would disqualify you from a safe-driver discount). The deciding factors are what time of day you drive, how far you drive, and how forcefully you brake.

The reason for the braking criteria is that "gentle braking apparently correlates to low insurance claims".  Anyone familiar with the Lucas critique will spot the problem with this, as Dyer does: 

If you're approaching a yellow light, Snapshot is an incentive to risk running the red rather than hitting the brakes. If a deer jumps out in front of you, Snapshot would prefer that you swerve into the oncoming lane rather than mash that brake pedal.

That is, the past relationship between braking behavior and driving safety reflects the behavior of agents under one set of incentives - if you change their incentives, their behavior will change, and the previous relationship between braking and safe driving will no longer be valid.

What Progressive really needs is a "structural" model that embodies the underlying preferences of their customers, which will be invariant to the policy change.  Of course that's a much harder thing to do (as macroecomists have discovered over the past several decades...).

Employment: April is Meh

According to today's report from the BLS, employment rose by 115,000 in April and the unemployment rate ticked down to 8.1%.

Nonfarm Payroll Employment (BLS; Seasonally Adj.)

The employment figure comes from a survey of businesses and is roughly consistent with a pace of job growth needed to keep the unemployment rate steady over time, but not nearly fast enough to bring it down.

Unemployment Rate (BLS; Seasonally Adj.)

The unemployment rate is calculated from a survey of households.  Unfortunately, the reason for the decrease isn't gains in employment, but rather a decrease in he labor force (the number of people who are working or looking for work, which is the denominator in the unemployment rate calculation).  In the household survey, the number of people reporting that they were working decreased by 169,000, while the labor force shrank by 342,000.  That brings the employment-population ratio down to 58.4 and the labor force participation rate is now 63.6.

Employment-Population Ratio (BLS; Seasonally Adj.)

The improvement in the unemployment rate over the past year (it was 9% in April, 2011) is due to the fact that the labor force has grown slowly relative to the population. Compared to a year ago, the "civilian noninstitutional" population (over 16) is 3.6 million higher, while the labor force has only grown by 0.95 million.  The number employed has increased by 2.2 million.  The employment-population ratio is the same as it was a year ago.  The declining labor force participation is probably a combination of demographic factors and discouragement.

April is a month with a large seasonal adjustment, and the month when the adjustment switches from positive to negative.  On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the unemployment rate fell from 8.4% to 7.7%, the employment-population ratio rose from 63.7 to 64.1, and employment grew by 896,000.  That is, comparing the adjusted and non-adjusted numbers tells us that April is always a month with big employment gains, but this month's weren't impressive relative to that pattern.  There has been some discussion about whether the seasonal adjustment is slightly off, partly because of the warmer than usual weather this winter, which would mean that some of the hiring that normally might occur in the spring could have happened earlier.

The February and March payroll employment figures were revised upward a bit, by 19,000 and 24,000 respectively.

Overall, this report is consistent with the picture we've had from most of the data releases over the past year of an economy that is growing, but not quickly enough to make up for the ground lost in the 2008-09 recession - i.e., to close the "output gap."  12.5 million people remain unemployed.

Update: More reaction from Brad Plumer, Greg Ip, Floyd Norris, Mark Thoma, Calculated Risk, and the econ "twitterverse".

Fed District 1 Rolls Up Its Sleeves

If the FOMC won't do enough on unemployment, the Boston Fed says "we'll do it ourselves, the hard way - one job at a time":

Attn. #jobseekers: The @BostonFed is #hiring! Search #jobopportunities here: ow.ly/axJgz #HireFriday

— BostonFed (@BostonFed) April 27, 2012

Tweet of the Day

I'm pretty annoyed at the Fed. On the other hand, holy crap look at every other large advanced economy.

— Ryan Avent (@ryanavent) April 27, 2012

Q1 GDP

The BEA's advance estimate puts real GDP growth at 2.2% for the first quarter.  That's down a bit from 3.0% in the last quarter of 2011, but overall its consistent with the picture over the last two years of an economy that is growing, but not quickly enough to make up the lost ground from the severe recession in 2008-09.

For the US economy, growth in the 2-3% range is consistent with stable unemployment. If the unemployment rate was 5%, this report would have been fine, but since the unemployment rate is still above 8%, its quite disappointing.

The blue line is real GDP and the red line is the employment-population ratio (part of the dip might be due to demographics).

Things looked better on the consumer side - durable goods purchases rose at a 15.3% rate.  But businesses are still holding back on investment - equipment and software investment rose at a weak 1.7% pace.  Investment in housing is finally growing a little bit, but from a very low base.  This chart shows three sub-components of investment as shares of GDP since 1970 - equipment and software (blue), residential housing (orange) and nonresidential structures (green).

Government was a drag, again; absent the decline in government purchases, growth would have been 2.8%.  While austerity is pushing European economies back into recession, semi-austerity here is holding back the US recovery.  In this particular quarter, most of the dip in government purchases was due to defense, so it may partly reflect quirks of the timing of exactly when the Pentagon spends its money.

The inflation rate, measured by the GDP deflator, was 1.5%.  However the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) deflator rose at a 2.4% rate and core (excluding food and energy) PCE inflation was 2.1%.  Given the apparent emphasis by the Fed on keeping PCE inflation below 2%, that doesn't give them room to maneuver - i.e., it makes it even tougher for the "doves" on the FOMC, alas.

More reactions: Ryan Avent, Brad Plumer,  Paul Krugman.

Update: More from Calculated Risk, Jim Hamilton, and me, in a story by Kevin Hall of McClatchy Newspapers:

“Given corporate profits, you might have hoped for more investment growth,” Craighead said. The economy continues to “hit the snooze button. … It’s acceptable growth in the normal economy, but given how many people are unemployed it is disappointing.”

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/04/27/146970/us-economy-slows-to-22-percent.html#storylink=cpy

Who Bails Out the IMF?

Us, says Simon Johnson:

Over the weekend, the monetary fund became a lot more leveraged — that is, its debt increased relative to its equity. The potential future liability to American taxpayers went up, because the risk of large credit losses increased, and those losses would need to be covered by shareholders (and the American stake in the fund is 17.69 percent of quota, with 16.8 percent of the votes).

There is also an implicit guarantee — arguably without limit — from the United States to the monetary fund. The United States set up the world trading system after World War II, and has a huge amount to lose if it fails. It also has deep pockets, compared with almost all other countries.

Therefore, unlike those at a typical corporation, the shareholders in the International Monetary Fund do not have limited liability, so we should care a great deal about the downside risks. The Europeans are currently increasing those risks — by lending to the fund and planning to use fund loans as part of future bailouts.

It hadn't occurred to me to worry about that.  Darn those "implicit guarantees"...

But this one seems very different from the implicit guarantees of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and "too big to fail" financial institutions that have made so much trouble.  When a government "bails out" a financial institution, it is really bailing out the financial institution's creditors.   Often those creditors are other financial institutions (who might be their counterparties on various transactions), or creditors of other financial institutions (e.g. a money market mutual fund that buys bank debt), so the government feels the need to rescue them because of a broader concern about "systemic risk" to the entire financial system.

The IMF's creditors, on the other hand, are governments.  If the IMF were to become insolvent, it would be a diplomatic issue, since governments would stand to lose money, but I'm not sure it would be such a problem for the world financial system.  How much - beyond the money the US has put into it - the US would have to lose if the IMF fails is not immediately obvious to me.  While a failure wouldn't spark an immediate financial crisis in the conventional way (though no doubt everyone would be pretty spooked!), how much worse off one thinks the world would be without the IMF depends on how much good you believe the IMF does.  And that is something people can (and do) debate.

Central Bank Firepower

Bundesbank's Jens Weidmann (via Bloomberg):

"Monetary policy is not a panacea and central bank firepower is not unlimited, especially not in a monetary union,” he said. “We can only win back confidence if we bring down excessive deficits and boost competitiveness. And it is precisely because these things are unpopular that makes it so tempting for politicians to rely instead on monetary accommodation."

As a factual matter, Weidmann is just plain wrong (and I think he knows it - perhaps this was just a poor word choice on his part).  In a fiat money system the central bank's firepower - its ability to create money - is unlimited.  There are good reasons why central banks choose to exercise restraint, but it is a policy choice.  In the case of Europe today, the ECB could create money to buy government bonds.  A mere expression of willingness to use its "firepower" this way could significantly bring ease the pressure on bond spreads.

The objections to this are twofold: (i) it creates "moral hazard" by allowing governments to escape the consequences of their own fiscal policies (though as Krugman and others have pointed out, the standard narrative about profligate peripheral governments is not really accurate) and (ii) money creation could lead to inflation.  Some of us think a little more inflation in Europe would actually be quite helpful, but others - particularly in Germany due to the memory of hyperinflation in the 1920s - are quite averse to it, and modern central bankers worry alot about maintaining the "credibility" of low inflation expectations.

In any case, the ECB has the firepower, its just choosing not to use it.

Transparency Versus Clarity at the Fed

In the Times, a nice story by Binyamin Appelbaum about how confusion and uncertainty about monetary policy persists, despite the Fed's moves towards greater transparency, such as publishing forecasts and holding press conferences (remember: before 1994, the Fed didn't even announce changes in the Fed Funds rate target).

Experts and investors have continued to disagree about the plain meaning of the Fed’s recent policy statements. Some say the increased volume of communication is creating cacophony rather than clarity. Political criticism of the Fed has continued unabated.

I'm not sure the uncertainty regarding the Fed's intentions should be considered a failure of communication.  This is an unusual time for monetary policy, with the financial crisis and "zero lower bound" forcing the Fed to experiment with different policy tools.  To the extent that the Fed's signals are unclear, I suspect that reflects genuine uncertainty within the Fed.

There is also significant degree of genuine disagreement among the members of the FOMC.  While Bernanke's tolerance for expressions of divergent views may enable "cacophony," in forming expectations about future policy it is quite useful to have a sense of the individual members' opinions since decisions will ultimately be made by a committee.

Just like monetary policy itself, the Fed's communication policy should be evaluated relative to a counterfactual (i.e., what would have happened without it).  While we may have a hard time predicting the course of monetary policy now, I think the outside world would be in a state of much deeper confusion if all of the unconventional monetary policy moves over the past several years had been conducted under the older tradition of secretiveness at the Fed.