The Baseline Scenario

I’ve commented earlier that many economic forecasts seem to assume reversion to the mean – here, meaning average economic growth over the last two decades. For a great example, go to the Wall Street Journal and admire the GDP growth rates projected for Q3 2009 through Q2 2010, marching happily up and to the right. (The numbers are 0.6%, 1.8%, 2.3%, and 2.8%.) This recession is different, however, and even if there is a mean to revert to after U.S. households decide how much they want to save, there’s no telling how long it will take.

For one perspective, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace had a session at the end of April featuring a few IMF economists. Marco Terrones (link to PowerPoint at the bottom of the page) looked at the typical duration of a recession and the ensuing recovery. The duration of recovery is measured to the point at which the economy reaches its previous peak output (the output level when the recession began – December 2007 in our case). He looked at 122 recessions since 1960. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Confidence is returning to most credit markets, consumer spending is likely to rebound for some items (autos and housing repair are leading contenders), and firms in the US are starting to sound more optimistic.  On NYT.com’s Economix yesterday, Peter Boone and I suggested that we are out of the panic phase of the crisis - in large part because the US fiscal stimulus has reassured people worldwide, but also because President Obama has had a broader calming effect.

Today, the Congressional Budget Office is pointing out that it would be premature to congratulate ourselves too much (disclosure: I’ve joined the CBO’s Panel of Economic Advisers, but none of the information here comes from them).  As you likely know, the administration is proposing to lend $100bn to the IMF, as part of that organization’s increase in resources following the G20 summit.  Peter Orszag, head of OMB, argued that there was zero probability of this money being lost, so $100bn should be “scored” for budget purposes as $0bn – which is how this kind of transaction has been handled in the past.  As the IMF likes to say, it is “the lender of last resort, but the first to be repaid.”

After considerable back and forth, the scoring issue was refered to the CBO.  The CBO has reportedly decided there is a 5 percent probability of default by the IMF.  This is an extraordinarily important statement.  Most informed people just assume that the risk of IMF default is zero, because that would essentially constitute a complete breakdown of the global economy and payments system.  But nothing is zero probability, particularly in a world of massive financial panics, incipient protectionism, and improvised global governance. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I testified to the House Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade (part of the House Financial Services Committee).  The hearing’s title was “Implications of the G-20 Leaders Summit for Low Income Countries and the Global Economy,” and the main topic was whether Congress should support an extra $100bn for the IMF that the Obama Administration agreed at the G20 summit in early April (witness list, webcast, and written testimony).

The committee was mostly in favor of the US continuing to play a leading role in supporting the IMF, but pressed the witnesses to explain whether the IMF could lose this money (highly unlikely), how this would protect American jobs (definitely, but hard to quantify precisely), and if the broader package of IMF reform should also be supported (e.g., the proposed gold sales are being reassessed, to see they could generate more resources for aid to developing countries).

Politico is reporting that US funding for the IMF is likely to be attached to the war supplemental spending bill.  The subcommittee’s chairman, Gregory Meeks, seemed positive – as did all the Democrats who spoke, along with Gary Miller, the Ranking Member/Senior Republican.  But, based on remarks made by at least two Republican members of the subcommittee, there is likely to be a big public fight at some point.  My guess is that the Democratic side will press hard for President Obama to more publicly explain why supporting the IMF (and the G20) is very much in the US interest.

The main points from my written testimony are below.  While Treasury represents the US vis-a-vis the IMF and traditionally has considerable scope for action, the views of Congress on IMF details are very important as both guidance and constraints.  In our advice on the wide range of IMF-related issues below, both I and the other witnesses laid out broadly similar views with varying emphasis – there was actually much more disagreement among committee members than at the witness table. Read the rest of this entry »

The Washington Post is widely read on Capitol Hill and the reception among key people to The Hearing blog (run by us and the Post) has been generally very positive.   Members of Congress and their staff want to get you more involved in their discussions around economic policy, and we’re experimenting with ways that will help your opinions – whatever they are – get across at a time and in a manner that increases their impact.

To that end, we’re developing on-line polls in which you can register your views on questions that are currently being debated – either in general terms or as specific legislation – on the Hill (of course, longer comments are also welcome; it’s a blog, after all).  Today’s question is about whether the United States should provide an additional $100bn to the IMF, as was agreed at and immediately after the recent G20 summit; this is for a hearing held by a subcommittee of House Financial Services, which starts at 10am. Read the rest of this entry »

Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, is in big trouble.  It turns out that a medium-sized industrialized democracy like the UK can be run in pretty much the same way as a traditional emerging market – fiscal irresponsibility (cyclically-adjusted general government deficit now forecast at 12.2 percent of GDP for 2010) gives you a boom for a while, but the eventual day of reckoning is economically painful and politically disastrous.  If you also need to deal with an oversized bubble finance sector, that makes the adjustment even more painful.

It is of course sensible to use fiscal stimulus to offset a fall in private demand, and to some extent this can be effective – with a lag.  But if you lose control over public spending and borrow too heavily (helped by the fact people like to hold your currency), it ends badly.

From the beginning, we’ve expressed concern here that the entire Summers Plan was overweight fiscal, i.e., not enough resources for recapitalizing banks and addressing housing directly (for the context of this assessment, see our full baseline view).  Back in December/January, this was a strategic choice worth arguing about; now it’s a done deal and following the (very) limited recapitalization outcome of the bank stress tests, it seems likely that household and firm spending will remain sluggish.  If that is the case, the Administration’s logic implies throwing another big fiscal stimulus into the mix – and the Summers’ team is already preparing the groundwork.

The IMF is now warning against the risks of this approach, albeit using carefully worded language. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the central themes of our Atlantic article was that the current crisis in the U.S. is very similar to the crises typically seen in emerging markets, and that resolving the crisis will require (some of) the measures often prescribed for emerging markets. This, Simon said, would be the assessment of IMF veterans who had worked on emerging markets crises.

At the exact same time that we were writing that article, Desmond Lachman – who worked at the IMF for 24 years, and then worked on emerging markets for Salomon Smith Barney for another seven years – was writing an article for the Washington Post saying many of the same things.* Here are the first three paragraphs:

Back in the spring of 1998, when Boris Yeltsin was still at Russia’s helm, I led a group of global investors to Moscow to find out firsthand where the Russian economy was headed. My long career with the International Monetary Fund and on Wall Street had taken me to “emerging markets” throughout Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America, and I thought I’d seen it all. Yet I still recall the shock I felt at a meeting in Russia’s dingy Ministry of Finance, where I finally realized how a handful of young oligarchs were bringing Russia’s economy to ruin in the pursuit of their own selfish interests, despite the supposed brilliance of Anatoly Chubais, Russia’s economic czar at the time.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you want an unusual insight into our potential future, take a look at Channel 4’s interview on Thursday with Peter Mandelson (UK’s Business Secretary, very close to Gordon Brown and a key person around the G20 summit).

In this clip, Mandelson comes on around the 12:48 mark (after Peer Steinbruck, the German finance minister, provides some complacent sound bites.)

But the surprising statement comes after the short interview with me (I start at 17:40 approx; Mandelson comes back around 21:38).  I have no idea if Mandelson knew this could happen, but Jon Snow (the anchor) goes back to him and asks if he agrees with me that the UK could borrow from the IMF. Read the rest of this entry »

The big news at the G20 was obviously about the IMF, with the Americans pulling out an impressive deal on funding (compare with our predictions…). But the money is not the biggest achivement. The big move was in terms of who will run the IMF in the near future – as I explain my NYT.com column this morning, there is an implicit and almost immediate shift towards emerging markets.

President Obama had just the right tone yesterday.  Admittedly, he was helped by the fact that we no longer have anything to be arrogant about, but still the way he reached out to other countries – while also pointing out that they made big mistakes and are currently in trouble – conveyed exactly the right message.  The US will do much better if it lets emerging markets and developing countries have a serious and permanent place at the big table. 

Among other things, this will fundamentally change the way the IMF operates.  As a symbol and for its potential impact on the international economy moving forward, yesterday’s final loss of European control over the IMF really matters.

By Simon Johnson

From 1945 until around 1980, the financial sector was one industry among many in the United States. Then something happened.

People in finance started making more money,* jobs in finance became more desirable, financial institutions became more influential, and the linkages between the financial sector and the political establishment became stronger. At the same time that our financial sector became more leveraged and more risky, it also became more powerful. The result was a confluence of interests between Wall Street and Washington – one more normally found behind the scenes of emerging market crises, the kind the IMF is called on to resolve.

Simon and I tell this story – and the story of what happened next – in “The Quiet Coup,” an article in the May issue of The Atlantic. (Many thanks to The Atlantic for putting the online copy up as early as they did.) The working title of the article was, “What the IMF Would Tell the United States, If It Could.” Enjoy.

* The data in that chart are from Table 6.6 of the National Income and Product Accounts tables available from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Update: Henry Seggerman recently sent us an article he wrote in 2007, comparing the Korean crisis of 2007 to the then-current situation in the United States. He discusses not only the economic similarities, but also some of the political ones.

Update 2: A reader sent us an article about Mark Patterson, formerly Goldman’s chief lobbyist and now Tim Geithner’s chief of staff. Unfortunately, the article was published too late for us to use any of it in our Atlantic article.

By James Kwak

The President’s top political counselors face the following dilemma.  They want to be tough on banks because that makes sense politically and, presumably, because it fits how they – with considerable relevant experience - would like to address the deeper underlying problems in the financial system.

But at least some prominent economic counselors to the President strongly disagree.  The Treasury Secretary, in particular, articulates the view that being tough on the banks and top bankers would further worsen credit markets and thus deepen/prolong the recession.  Mr Geithner wants to try other routes, and while he does not rule out imposing policies that banks would not like, it is not in his Plan A or likely a feature of his Plan B.

The President has evidently sided with Treasury, either because he decided they have superior technical competence, or because Emanuel and Axelrod themselves gave way when the experts stared them down.

The dilemma is this.  Read the rest of this entry »

The IMF communicates its view of the world economy in two ways.  The first is quite explicit, in the form of a World Economic Outlook with specific growth forecasts.  The latest update to the Outlook, published last week, recognized that world growth is slowing down, but anticipated a V-shaped recovery (there is a reassuring V in their Figure 1, or you can look at the Q4 on Q4 numbers for 2009 in the pdf version - the US does not contract during the coming year, according to this view.)

According to the forecast – which factors in only actual policies in place; no assumed miracles allowed – this is not much of a global crisis, particularly for emerging markets (e.g., emerging market growth dips to 3.3% for 2009 and then pops back up to 5% for 2010 in the annual average data; China’s growth will accelerate from now through end of 2010, etc.)  Given that, among other things, the IMF is the point organization for emerging market troubles, the message seems to be a soothing one.

But the IMF also communicates with both its lending to countries in difficulties, and with statements on and around this lending.  Here the news is in striking contrast to the forecast.  Read the rest of this entry »

The US has the opportunity – and perhaps the responsibility – to immediately retake a leadership role in global economic policy thinking, with the pressing priority of preventing the world’s recession from becoming something more serious.  But what should be Mr Obama’s priorities in this regard, for example in the run-up to the G20 summit in early April – which, given the timetable for these things, will have an unofficial dry run of sorts at the Davos meetings next week?

The obvious message could be: a large US fiscal stimulus is coming, but the rest of the world needs to do more.  In this option, Mr Obama could devote considerable effort to encouraging others to expand their government spending and/or cut taxes.

While worldwide cooperation of this form may have been a constructive thought last year at Davos, when the idea was first broached publicly by the IMF, a joint global fiscal stimulus is a glorious idea whose time has for now passed. Read the rest of this entry »

Other posts in this occasional series.

I generally prefer systemic explanations for events, but it is obviously worthwhile to complement this with a careful study of key individuals. And in the current crisis, no individual is as interesting or as puzzling as Hank Paulson.

The big question must be: How could a person with so much market experience be repeatedly at the center of such major misunderstandings regarding the markets, and how could his team – stuffed full of people like him – struggle so much to communicate what they were doing and why?

Hank Paulson’s exit interview with the Financial Times contains some potential answers but also generates some new puzzles.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, the IMF released a new research “note” entitled “Fiscal Policy for the Crisis,” which sets out recommendations for fiscal policy to address the global economic downturn. The premises of the note are, first, that the financial system must be fixed before it is possible to increase demand and, second, that there is limited scope for monetary policy, leaving fiscal policy as the main weapon. The executive summary provides the main recommendation in short form:

The optimal fiscal package should be timely, large, lasting, diversified, contingent, collective, and sustainable: timely, because the need for action is immediate; large, because the current and expected decrease in private demand is exceptionally large; lasting because the downturn will last for some time; diversified because of the unusual degree of uncertainty associated with any single measure; contingent, because the need to reduce the perceived probability of another “Great Depression” requires a commitment to do more, if needed; collective, since each country that has fiscal space should contribute; and sustainable, so as not to lead to a debt explosion and adverse reactions of financial markets.

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By now you probably know all you need to know about Too Large To Fail (Citigroup), Too Interconnected To Fail (AIG), and Too Many Potential Job Losses To Fail Before A New Administration Takes Office (GM).  Almost all the bailout cases we have seen recently were some combination of the above and they generally shared the characteristic of being large relative to the US and perhaps global financial system.  We have become accustomed to bailout increments in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and to periodically reassessing how many trillions have been committed by the Federal Reserve and others.

Today we received confirmation of something quite different: a bailout package for Latvia.  Latvia is a small country (2.2m people) and it is receiving a loan of just $2.35bn from the IMF.  The loan is obviously tiny compared with other bailouts (Citigroup received at least 10 times as much in November), but it is big in relation to Latvia’s economy – in IMF parlance, the loan is 1,200 percent (or 12x) Latvia’s quota.  Quotas are based on the size of your economy, among other things, and it used to be that 3x quota was a big loan and 5x quota really raised eyebrows.  (Iceland recently broke some records in this regard (official numbers here), and perhaps we are now in a brave new world where borrowing over 10x quota becomes more standard.)

We can scrutinize the full details of the program when it becomes public, but the press release already makes the key point quite clear,

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