Category: Commentary

Money as the Ultimate Giffen Good

This post is contributed by StatsGuy, an occasional guest contributor and commenter.

Monday August 8 2011 witnessed a truly impressive financial spectacle—a natural experiment of the kind we see only once a century or so. The S&P downgraded US debt, and the price of US Treasuries skyrocketed.

Many pundits were left scratching their heads. Professional traders tripped over themselves trying to get out of the way. Macroeconomists at least had an explanation, arguing that the downgrade meant substantially lower growth, and this forced people to shift into Treasuries since bonds rise when growth projections diminish.

While some macroeconomists have an inkling of what is going on, I suspect they got their causation backwards. Why would an increase in a risk rating on debt directly lower growth projections? Usually, the increases in risk ratings cause increases in interest rates, and it’s the rate hikes that harm growth. But, um, nominal interest rates went down, right? Shouldn’t that have helped growth? More sophisticated economists will note that when they talk about rates, they mean the real rate (adjusted for inflation), and that if inflation expectations drop more than nominal interest rates, then real interest rates go up and this will slow growth. However, this did not happen—real interest rates actually declined about 0.2% along most of the yield curve between Monday the 8th and Tuesday the 9th. And if real rates declined, how would this cause lower growth? Instead, I suspect the decline in real rates was the outcome of lower expected growth. It’s all very circular and confusing, but at least I’m not alone. Others seem even more confused.

For example, Dick Bove said: “We have people buying Treasury securities because they’re worried about the Treasury. We’ve got people selling banks stocks, taking the cash and putting into the banks for safety. It doesn’t make sense. What you’re seeing is this adjustment is occurring and people are not sure how to react to this adjustment.”

Continue reading “Money as the Ultimate Giffen Good” →

Should We Expect Another Round Of Bailouts?

By Simon Johnson

In the wake of recent equity market declines, the clamor for bailouts of various kinds grows ever louder around the world. Influential voices call for “leadership” from the US and Western Europe, and for policymakers in those countries to “get ahead of the curve”. This is all code for a simple and familiar plea: Do something that will protect investors, particularly creditors who have lent a lot of money to banks and countries that now appear to be in serious difficulty.

But providing another round of unconditional creditor bailouts in this situation would be a mistake. What we need is a combination of transparent losses where bad loans were made, combined with a ring fencing approach that protects sound governments and firms. There is no sign yet that policymakers are willing to make that distinction clear.

The situation around the world is undeniably bad. As Peter Boone and I argued in a Peterson Institute policy paper released a couple of weeks ago, Europe is most definitely “On the Brink” of a serious economic crisis that could involve widespread defaults or significant inflation or both. At the same time, Bank of America shares this week fell to their lowest in 2 years; with other large banks under pressure, there is a legitimate fear of rerunning the parts of the financial crisis of 2008-09. Continue reading “Should We Expect Another Round Of Bailouts?” →

Barack Obama and Harry Potter

By James Kwak

Helene Cooper of the New York Times wrote a “news analysis” story saying that the challenge for President Obama is this:

“Is he willing to try to administer the disagreeable medicine that could help the economy mend over the long term, even if that means damaging his chances for re-election?”

The problem, she goes on to say in the next paragraph, is that the economy is in bad shape:

“The Federal Reserve’s finding on Tuesday that there is little prospect for rapid economic growth over the next two years was the latest in a summer of bad economic news.”

Continue reading “Barack Obama and Harry Potter” →

S&P Ratings Destroy Information

By James Kwak

A lot of the theory of securities markets revolves around information: securities prices respond to changes in available information, you want to provide incentives for people to produce information, some kinds of information should be equally available to everyone, other kinds of information you should be able to trade on, etc. In the conventional model, rating agencies are information providers: they produce information that is useful to market participants, and thereby improve the functioning of the markets.

Well, forget all that. Nate Silver has the best article I’ve seen yet on S&P’s sovereign debt ratings, and the summary is that it isn’t pretty. Some of the things Silver finds, using some publicly available data and Stata, are:

Debt-to-GDP ratio alone is a better predictor of default risk than an S&P rating (meaning that the rating subtracts information provided by the debt-to-GDP ratio).
S&P ratings have almost no correlation with future default risk.
S&P rates European countries higher than other countries, all other things being equal—and look where that got us.
S&P ratings are serially correlated, which means they incorporate new information especially slowly.

Hopefully this will be one more nail in the coffin of regulations that incorporate NRSRO ratings.

(In other non-news, I’ve been forgetting to mention that I was on Benzinga Radio last week talking about the debt ceiling deal (mainly politics, not much economics). I was also on Letters and Politics on KPFA and KPFK in California this morning, talking about economic factors behind the stock market slide.)

So What? Part Two

By James Kwak

So, Standard and Poor’s went ahead and downgraded the United States yesterday, apparently because we have a dysfunctional political system. Who knew?

As I said before, I don’t think that S&P has added anything new to the world’s stock of information. In the short term, the most worrying thing about a downgrade is what I called the “legal-mechanical consequences”: the possibility that investors, who value their own opinions more than S&P’s anyway, might have to dump Treasuries because they are no longer AAA. Apparently, this is not going be a huge problem. Binyamin Appelbaum of the Times says that (a) many of the rules place Treasuries in a different category from other AAA securities to begin with and (b) since the downgrade only affects long-term debt, money-market mutual funds are safe.

Still, I think the whole thing is preposterous. S&P downgrading the United States is like Consumer Reports downgrading Coca-Cola. Consumer Reports is a great institution. For example, if you want to know how reliable a 2007 Ford Explorer is going to be, they have done more research than anyone to figure out the reliability history of every single vehicle. Those ratings are a real public service, since they add information to the world. But when it comes to Coke and Pepsi, everyone has an opinion already, and no one cares which one, according to Consumer Reports, “really” tastes better. When S&P rated some tranche of a CDO AAA back in 2006, it meant that some poor analyst had run some model fed to her by an investment bank and made sure that the rows and columns added up correctly, and the default probability percentage at the end was below some threshold. It might have been crappy information, but it was new information. When S&P rates long-term Treasuries AA+, it means . . . nothing. And if any serious buy-side investor were tempted to take S&P’s rating into account, she would be deterred by the fact that the analysis that produced the rating included a $2 trillion arithmetic error.

Continue reading “So What? Part Two” →

Would A Balanced Budget Amendment Make Sense?

By Simon Johnson

Some House and Senate Republicans have worked hard to ensure that a “balanced budget” constitutional amendment be included in the mix of policies under consideration to address longer-run fiscal issues in the United States. Such an amendment is presented as way to keep spending and deficits under control, by requiring that federal spending not exceed revenues.

But there are three main problems with this potential approach as it is currently articulated.

The first issue, which has been forcefully identified by Bruce Bartlett, is that there is no way to make this amendment work in practice. The language currently proposed would, as part of the “balance”, limit federal government spending to 18 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), subject only to a potential override by a 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress. On the table, in effect, is a balanced budget amendment with a spending cap. Continue reading “Would A Balanced Budget Amendment Make Sense?” →

A Few Thoughts on the Debt Ceiling Deal

By James Kwak

1. Obama still has his hostage—if he wants it. As far as I can tell, the Bush tax cuts are nowhere in the debt ceiling agreement, which means that at current course and speed they expire at the end of 2012. Extending the tax cuts would reduce revenue by about $3.5 trillion over the next decade. According to news reports, Obama was willing to extend the Bush tax cuts in exchange for $800-1,200 billion of additional tax revenue—in other words, he was willing to cut taxes by about $2.5 trillion relative to current law. Boehner and Cantor walked out because of some combination of (a) they couldn’t get their members to vote for that tax “increase” or (b) they think they will be able to extend all the tax cuts if they negotiate that deal separately. I wouldn’t be so sure about (b). Remember, gridlock means the tax cuts expire.

2. The next step of the deal is that a joint Congressional committee is supposed to come up with a plan to reduce deficits by $1.2-1.5 trillion over ten years. If they fail to come up with a plan, or their plan is rejected by Congress, then there will be major automatic cuts in discretionary spending, including defense. (There will also be cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates, but not in Social Security or Medicaid.) The idea on Obama’s side is that the prospect of major defense cuts will force Republicans to negotiate. But if they were willing to let the government default rather than increase taxes—even by closing tax loopholes—why do we think they will be afraid of some defense budget cuts? Traditional Republicans may have liked high defense spending, but not the new breed. Ron Paul is basically an isolationist; Grover Norquist thinks the defense budget should be reduced.

Continue reading “A Few Thoughts on the Debt Ceiling Deal” →

Who Is In Worse Shape – the United States or Europe?

By Simon Johnson

If economic performance is in part a beauty pageant, as John Maynard Keynes suggested, both the U.S. and Europe seem to be competing hard this summer for last place. If anything, based on the latest flow of news coverage, Europe might seem to be experiencing something of a resurgence – last week the eurozone agreed on a big deal involving mutual support and limiting the fallout from Greece’s debt problems. In contrast, the U.S. this week seems to be completely mired in a political stalemate that becomes more complex and confused at every turn.

But rhetoric masks the reality on both sides of the Atlantic. The eurozone still faces an immediate crisis – the can was kicked down the road last week, but not far. The United States, on the other hand, is in much better shape over the next decade than you might think listening to politicians of any stripe. The American problems loom in the decades that follow 2021 – the good news is that there is still plenty of time to sort these out; the bad news is that almost no one is currently talking about the real issues.

In a policy paper released by the Peterson Institute for International Economics last Thursday, Peter Boone and I went through the details on the eurozone crisis, including how this common currency area got itself into such deep trouble – and what exactly are the likely scenarios now (you can also see the discussion and contrasting views at the launch here). Continue reading “Who Is In Worse Shape – the United States or Europe?” →

Two Can Play

By James Kwak

Quick, what was the greatest conservative accomplishment of the George W. Bush presidency? It wasn’t Medicare Part D: that was a clever way to steal a Democratic issue and pass it in a form that was friendly to the pharmaceutical industry. It wasn’t Roberts and Alito: yes, they are young and conservative, but the majority is still only 5-4. It wasn’t Social Security privatization: that didn’t happen. Iraq? Getting political support to invade Iraq was a major coup, but everything went downhill from there.

The answer is obvious: the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Together, they were a wish list of conservative tax policy: a reduction in the top marginal income tax rate from 39.1 percent to 35 percent; a reduction in the top rates for capital gains and dividends to 15 percent; much higher contribution limits for tax-preferred retirement accounts (meaning that if you have enough money to save, you can shield more of it from taxes); and eventual elimination of the estate tax. In total, when fully phased in, the Bush-era tax cuts sliced almost 3 percent of GDP out of federal government revenues.*

Continue reading “Two Can Play” →

Could Tax Reform Help Make the Financial System Safer?

By Simon Johnson. My written testimony to the joint hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee with the Senate Finance Committee is here.

In the deafening cacophony of Washington-based voices on the debt ceiling, it is easy to miss a potentially more significant development. There is growing bipartisan interest in tax reform, including changing the corporate tax system to make it more sensible – and a bulwark against financial sector instability.

The House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee held a joint hearing last week – apparently the first time these two committees have met in this fashion to discuss tax in over 70 years. The theme of the hearing might sound a little dry, “Tax Reform and the Tax Treatment of Debt and Equity,” but in fact it was well-designed to carve out some space for future agreement across the political spectrum.

The basic premise of the hearing was the question: Did the tax code contribute to the severity of the financial crisis in 2008-09? At one level the answer is simple: Yes, because the tax deductibility of interest payments encourages families to take out bigger mortgages and companies to borrow more relative to their equity capital (as dividend payments to stock owners are not tax deductible). But where within the tax code should we focus attention, if the goal is preventing similar crises in the future? Continue reading “Could Tax Reform Help Make the Financial System Safer?” →

What Is Obama Getting?

By James Kwak

Nothing, as far as I can tell.

The media are reporting the potential Obama-Boehner deal as $3 trillion in spending cuts and $1 trillion in unspecified future revenue increases. But as far as I can tell (details are vague), the baseline for that $1 trillion tax increase is a world in which all of the Bush/Obama tax cuts are extended.*

President Obama can personally guarantee that none of those tax cuts will be extended, simply by promising to veto any bill that extends them. That would increase tax revenues by $3-4 trillion over ten years, not $1 trillion. That is enormous bargaining leverage against a Republican Party that only cares about one thing: tax cuts.

So as far as I can tell, Obama is handing the Republicans $3 trillion in spending cuts, and also handing them $3 trillion in tax cuts. There are only two possible interpretations that I can think of. One: Obama thinks this is the best deal he can get — but if that’s the case, then you have to ask why his starting point wasn’t letting all of the tax cuts expire. Two: Obama thinks this is a good outcome.

But this certainly isn’t a progressive outcome. And giving up $3 trillion in revenues isn’t a fiscally responsible outcome, either. So what does that say?

* That’s how Ezra Klein reads it.

The Weirdness of 10-Year Deficit Reduction

By James Kwak

The Gang of Six plan proposes to reduce the cumulative deficit by $3.6-3.7 trillion over ten years relative to the CBO’s March 2011 baseline. Everyone’s excited about it. Four trillion dollars! Hooray!

The weird thing is that if you are claiming deficit reductions against the CBO’s baseline, I think intellectual honesty requires you to point out that, according to the CBO’s baseline, there is no deficit problem. The projected 2021 deficit is $729 billion, but net interest spending is $807 billion (Table 1-5). That means that the primary budget is running a surplus of $78 billion, the entire deficit is due to interest payments on the debt, and the debt has stabilized around 75 percent of GDP. This is not a great situation, but it’s no emergency, either.

Continue reading “The Weirdness of 10-Year Deficit Reduction” →

Then Why Are Treasuries Up?

By James Kwak

The Times:

Markets Stumble on Deficit and Debt Worries

Stocks in the United States and Europe fell more than 1 percent on Monday in the wake of the publication late Friday of the results of stress tests on European banks, and as investors remained wary about the debt-ceiling talks in Washington.

The Journal:

Stocks Slump on Debt Fears

Stocks fell as the combination of anxieties about debt in the block of euro-using nations and a lack of progress in U.S. debt-ceiling negotiations sparked a selloff.

If people are worried about the debt ceiling, then why are short-term and intermediate-term Treasuries flat or slightly up? Presumably the mechanism by which a debt ceiling breakdown would affect stocks would have to go through Treasuries somehow.

So What?

By James Kwak

Everyone (well, the media at least) seems to be acting as if Moody’s downgrading the United States would be a bad thing. I feel like I must be missing something.

First of all, we know what bond ratings are worth. See, oh, the entire past decade for evidence. (It wasn’t just mortgage-backed securities; they didn’t downgrade Enron until after the SEC announced an inquiry and CFO Andrew Fastow was forced out, and less than five weeks before the company declared bankruptcy.)

Still, the point of bond rating agencies is to do research on securities that other investors may not know well. If I’m a buy-side investor, I don’t have the time to review tens of thousands of different debt securities I could buy. It makes sense for me to turn to someone like Moody’s or S&P, because I can count on them to do at least some level of research and analysis on them. In other words, the ratings may not be great, but they still carry information.

But this is emphatically not true when it comes to U.S. government debt. Enormous amounts of information about the government’s finances are open to the public and are pored over by thousands of analysts from all around the world. Moody’s is no better at estimating future tax revenues and spending commitments than anyone else.

Continue reading “So What?” →