I’m going to be on the Peter Schiff Internet Radio show, Thursday at 6:35 PM EST, talking about Zombie Economics. It should be interesting. A while ago, I had quite an interesting chat with Russ Roberts, whose views are, I think, fairly similar to Schiff’s, so i’m hoping for some creative interaction on the Keynesian and Austrian approaches to thinking about financial crises and depressions. I planned a full scale post on this, but haven’t had time yet.
Category: Economics – General
State of Innovation
In discussions about markets and innovation, I’ve repeatedly made the point that the biggest single innovation of recent decades, the Internet, was not produced by markets at all. It started in the university sector (aided by a little seed money from the US Defense Department) and was developed by amateurs and volunteers for a couple of decades before it was handed over to the dotcommers, who proceeded to waste a trillion dollars or so on silly get-rich-quick schemes.
I’ve never had the time to go much beyond that, but a recent book, State of Innovation, edited by Fred Block and Matthew Keller takes a close look at the process of innovation in the US and the role of government funding. The key conclusion
over the last four decades, government programs and policies have quietly become ever more central to the American economy. From “basic research” to commercialization, the fingerprints of government can be found in virtually every major industrial success story of the late 20th and early 21st century.
At least in part, this reflects the disappearance of big corporate R&D outfits like Bell Labs, and the conversion of General Electric into a finance company. But there are lots more interesting details about the relationship between startups, venture capital and public funding. Well worth reading.
Assessing Australia’s Declining Economic Growth: Guest post from Hannah McKale
I’ve been given the following guest post by Hannah McKale. Please discuss, remembering that the usual standards of courtesy and civilised discussion apply with extra emphasis for guest posters – JQ
The effects of the global economic crisis have been wide reaching and dramatic, having an impact on almost all industries, stocks, and housing prices in most developed nations. The fall of Lehman Brothers in September of 2008 was a predominant trigger of economic catastrophe, as it was a sign of just how tumultuous things had gotten in the financial markets. While it would take a degree from any of a number of political science schools to fully grasp the full range and depth of the economic crisis, it is easy to see that the tightening of credit markets, plummeting housing prices, and unprecedented uncertainty in the financial markets started on that cold day in September. As it spread around the world at a fast pace, it was clear that the economies of major developed nations are all intertwined and exert an enormous amount of influence on each other. By May of 2009, twenty-nine of the thirty OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations were officially experiencing a recession, defined by two straight quarters of financial decline and negative growth. The 1 country that did not enter into a recession, and is experiencing growth at faster levels than all of the other OECD nations, is Australia. While Australia has experienced declines in certain areas of their economy, most notably during the December quarter of 2009, they immediately bounced back in the next quarter, (March 2010), holding off a full recession at a time when all of their economic peers were in the midst of one. It is worth asking the question: how is Australia remaining economically strong at a time of such widespread economic weakness and uncertainty?
Much of its solvency can be attributed to Australia’s ample mineral resources coupled with a lucrative trading partnership with China. While also in the midst of a recession, China’s manufacturing sector is growing at a break-neck pace, though it has slowed in recent months to a growth rate of 10.6%, down from a first quarter growth rate of 11.9%. However, growth statistics like these are enough to make US investors salivate, as US manufacturing output has been growing at a much slower rate of between 3 and 5% for the past 16 months. Australia is the number 1 exporter of iron ore to China, which translates to billions of dollars in revenue and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Australia took a proactive step against the initial financial crisis before it even hit their shores by passing a $42 billion stimulus package dubbed the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. This plan mandated that the money be used for road and rail maintenance projects, updating schools and technologically equipping them for the 21st century, and maintaining social housing projects. Before the Nations Building and Jobs Plan was passed, Australia’s GDP declined sharply by 5.88% in the 2008-09 fiscal year. The passage of this stimulus helped to raise Australia’s GDP by 2 ¾ percent in the 2009-10 fiscal year and looks to have been instrumental in another 1 ½ percent raise in 2010-11. Thus, Australia actually added 210,000 jobs when most nations were losing theirs by the millions.
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Bet with Bryan Caplan, Year 2
Back in 2009, I made a bet with Bryan Caplan, with the winning condition for Caplan being that “the average Eurostat harmonised unemployment rate for the EU-15 over the period 2009-18 inclusive should exceed that for the US by at least 1.5 percentage points”, my interpretation being that the difference offsets the effects of the high US rate of incarceration. The EU-15 average rate was slightly below the US rate for 2009, and slightly above the US in 2010, so, for the first two years, the difference averages out to near zero.
If I were looking only at labor markets, I’d be grimly confident at this point. Although the eurozone encompasses some very different economies, overall, eurozone labor markets dealt with the immediate consequences of the global financial crisis relatively well. Meanwhile, the performance of the US labor market has been disastrous. The employment-population ratio has plummeted, back to the levels of 1970 before the large-scale entry of women into the labor market, while long-term unemployment is far above any previous level. Unsurprisingly, this is the time the Republicans have chosen to throw the long-term unemployed off benefits[1]. Meanwhile, the collapse of the housing market has greatly reduced labor mobility. The adverse effects of these developments are likely to persist for years, and the 2010 election outcome forecloses any hope of active policy response.
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Austerity in the UK* — Crooked Timber
Visiting London briefly, I’m struck by both the drastic nature of the cuts being proposed by the Coalition government, and the bitterness of the response. By comparison, the austerity measures being proposed by most eurozone governments seem both less regressive and more sustainable in the long run, and the demonstrations in response to be much more in the nature of normal politics, with an element of street theatre.
I haven’t had time for a detailed analysis, but a quick comparison of the eurozone cuts listed here, and the measures proposed by the Coalition seems to me to bear this impression out. Maybe it’s just lack of detail in the eurozone list, but (except maybe in Ireland) there seems to be nothing like the mass withdrawal of public services and the focus on punishing the poor for the crimes of the rich that is the hallmark of the Cameron-Clegg regime.
This, again, seems to me to cast doubt on analyses that focus on the role of the EU and the euro. As far as I can see, UK policy is essentially unconstrained by the EU and is driven by the demands of ratings agencies and the financial sector generally. On the plus side, the Bank of England has been more expansionary in monetary policy than the ECB, but it’s been equally supportive of fiscal austerity which is the main problem.
- My intended allusion doesn’t jump off the page as I’d hoped, but UK political and social discussion has, to this visitor at least, a distinct late-70s air at present.
The crisis of 2011 – in 2010? — Crooked Timber
Back in July, no one seemed to be talking about a shutdown of the US government following the Dems loss of control of the House. Now the only question is – when?
David Dayen at FDL says it could be as soon as December (I don’t understand the mechanics well enough to confirm or reject this claim). Among those looking forward to the shutdown, the most notable, for a variety of reasons is Alan Simpson. Obama must really be feeling the gratitude there.
There’s still a chance that the Dems can manage a pre-emptive capitulation/collaboration so massive that some on the other side will be willing to cash in their gains without taking the risk of a shutdown. I imagine that would entail, at a minimum, full extension of the Bush tax cuts, effective repeal of the health care bill, no more money for the unemployed, Social Security ‘reform’ and a bunch of spending cuts directed at the tribal demons of the Tea Party. Of those, health care is the only one where I can see the White House taking a stand. I’m less clear about the priorities of the Congressional Dems.
Euroconfusion — Crooked Timber
Most of the discussion I’ve seen of the financial crisis as it affects the eurozone seems to me both confused and confusing. A country outside the eurozone and without the “exorbitant privilege” of being able to sell lots of debt denominated in home currency has three options when it runs into debt trouble: default, depreciation and dependency.
Default is the straightforward solution, but it involves a big loss of face, and unpredictable long-term costs. Depreciation doesn’t directly improve the debt position, since debts are in foreign currency, but by making exports cheaper and imports dearer it helps a country to trade its way out of difficulty, without the need for a reduction in domestic prices and wages. Finally, there’s the option of dependency on an outside rescuer, normally the IMF. This has been the most common solution, but the IMF always demands a price (in terms of policy “reforms”) that makes a rescue only marginally more attractive than default.
A eurozone country doesn’t have the option of depreciation. In return, however, it has two dependency options, calling on either the IMF, or the European Financial Stability Fund. Since the EU would like to keep the IMF out, a distressed debtor can expect slightly better terms from the EFSF.
The default option isn’t affected, except in the same way as any kind of behavior viewed as discreditable affects membership of any club. A government that defaults on its debts might be thrown out of the eurozone, but then again it might be thrown out of the OECD, and the eurozone might expel a member that facilitated tax evasion.
The big question is whether the EFSF will work. That’s certainly challenging, but it still seems like a better bet for debtor countries than going it alone. And of course, there’s more commonality of interest than is often supposed because any bailout benefits the creditors, usually French and German banks
One-dimensional chess — Crooked Timber
The big issue to be decided by the lame-duck Congress is whether to extend Bush’s tax cuts for the very rich[1]. This is a one-dimensional chess game, with the obvious zero-sum property that if the tax go through, the Republicans win and (at least in standard political terms) the Democrats lose by an equal amount.
There seems to be a near-universal consensus that
(i) The game is a forced win for the Dems (pass a bill extending the cuts for everyone but the rich and dare the Repugs to oppose it)
(ii) The Dems opening move will be to resignThis analysis certainly gives support to the idea of unobserved dimensions, presumably monetary
fn1. The option of not extending them for the well-off, and doing something serious about the deficit without too much impact on demand is way outside the Overton window.
Remembrance Day
Over the fold is the piece I wrote for the Fin which ran yesterday, on Remembrance Day. I wasn’t entirely satisfied with the last couple of paras, referring to the present and future, so I need to spell them out a bit more.
First, while I was, in 2002, a fairly enthusiastic supporter of the decision to go to war in Afghanistan, subsequent events and the evolution of my own thinking have led me to qualify that view, and to conclude, in particular, that Australia should withdraw its troops in the near future.
First, some general thoughts
* War is justified only in self-defence (including collective self-defence), and only to the extent that there is a reasonable expectation that going to war will yield a better outcome than not doing so
* Even when war is justified by self-defence, it should not be used as a pretext for securing benefits that go beyond restoration of the status quo ante bellum (bearing in mind that war changes things, so exact restoration is often not feasible).
* Political and public thinking is biased in favor of the belief that military force is an effective way to deal with political problems and a successful use of military force (even if justified) reinforces this bias. So it is important to create whatever institutional constraints are possible, such as requirements for Parliamentary approval of decisions to go to war
* Even when justified ex ante, war is unpredictable and likely to go badly. The idea that having started on a war that has turned out badly, we should “see it through” is a mistake
Coming to Afghanistan, I think the self-defence case is clear-cut. The US was attacked by terrorists trained in and led from Afghanistan, by a group supported by the Taliban government. It’s possible to make a hypothetical case that absent the incompetence and malice of the Bush Administration (backed by Blair and Howard in the decision to start a new war in Iraq) that there was a reasonable expectation of success. However, I observe with some discomfort that much the same case is put forward by many on the left who backed the Iraq war, where, however, the self-defence case was a transparent sham. In any case, we are past the point where continuing the war can be expected to produce benefits for either Afghanistan or the world. It would be better to withdraw and spend some of the money saved as a result (many times Afghanistan’s annual national income) on aid.
Finally, I concluded my post by saying “On this Remembrance Day, we should honour the sacrifice of all those who died by giving up, once and for all, the belief that war should be part of our national policy.” To be clear, I am not a pacifist and do not oppose fighting in self-defence. The idea that “war should be part of our national policy” means to me, that the use or threat of military force can and should be used to advance our perceived national interest. This idea, which forms the basis of military policy in most countries, appears to to both morally wrong and factually false.
Bligh and Fraser sell Port of Brisbane … to themselves
According to the Brisbane Times, the Bligh government has just sold the Port of Brisbane to a consortium led by the Queensland Investment Corporation. This must have been a tough negotiation, given that the QIC website states
As a Queensland GOC, QIC’s shareholding Ministers are the Honourable Anna Bligh MP, Premier and Minister for the Arts, and the Honourable Andrew Fraser MP, Treasurer and Minister for Employment and Economic Development
Note: As with the QR sale, it looks as if the government has retained about $1.3 billion of debt in the Port of Brisbane Corporation, which now has no assets, so the net proceeds will be less than half the announced price of $2.3 billion.
John Quiggin 