Skrbim za vašo dobro obveščenost glede akademske razprave o (ne)potrebnosti politike varčevanja za izhod iz krize. Danes se je v Financial Timesu glede tega oglasil Ken Rogoff. Ja, tisti Rogoff, profesor iz Harvarda, ki je bil nekoč glavni ekonomist IMF, kasneje je z Reinhartovo delal dobre zgodovinske preglede finančnih kriz ter, no, nato s to isto Reinhartovo zagrešil tiste bedaste napake v raziskavi o vplivu zadolženosti na gospodarsko rast. Prav ta raziskava je bila eden izmed dveh ključnih “kao” akademskih dokazov, da je dolg slab in da je nujna politika varčevanja (druga taka je bila raziskava Alesine in Ardagne, ki pa so jo tudi razkrinkali kot napačno narejeno).

Po razkrinkanju napake se zdaj Rogoff nekako poskuša rehabilitirati in se vrača v opravičljivem slogu. Natančneje, poskuša za nazaj upravičiti, zakaj politika varčevanja morda ni bila povsem napačna. Njegova glavna poanta je, da se takrat leta 2010 ni vedelo, kako bodo reagirali finančni trgi in ali se bodo množično umikali iz evrskih obveznic in obveznic v funtih, zato naj bi prav politika varčevanja poskrbela za neke vrste zavarovanje pred tem. In sicer tako, da države z zategnitvijo pasu finančnim trgom ne bi dale napačnega signala.

Rogoff:

I am puzzled by commentators who are certain that governments had it all wrong, at every step, in balancing stimulus and stability in the aftermath of the crisis. … According to the debt panglossians, UK leaders watched as the economy stagnated, rationing stimulus out of a baseless concern over credit risks.

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They do have some very solid points on their side, particularly when it comes to high-return infrastructure projects. Such projects, if done at a reasonable cost, pay for themselves. Governments should have done more, and not just to stimulate demand. There are good neoclassical arguments for higher government spending in a slack economy when resources are cheaper. But debt panglossians are far too confident that the UK’s credit status is bulletproof, and too dismissive of the risks.

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From early 2010 until quite recently, there was every reason to worry about a disorderly exit from the eurozone potentially blowing up the whole thing. This was the big call – the one that everyone was focusing on. To state that credit risk was gone by 2010 is ludicrous.

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We now know the euro did not collapse. With 20-20 hindsight, yes, the UK could have borrowed more. But we do not have hindsight at the moment decisions have to be taken. To pretend we always knew everything would be fine, and to assess performance accordingly, is just plain bunk.

Vir: Kenneth Rogoff, Financial Times

Hmm, to o nezmožnosti vedenja vnaprej, kaj se bo dogajalo na trgih, je seveda samo po sebi umevno. Če bi vedeli, bi imeli popolnoma predvidljiv svet in ne bi imeli nobenih kriz. Toda poanta, ki jo poskuša prodati Rogoff, je vseeno deplasirana. Iz dveh razlogov. Prvič, nihče ni mogel vedeti, kako se bodo obnašali trgi, toda 80 let razvoja makroekonomije kot znanosti ter dve veliki zgodovinski izkušnji (Velika depresija v 1930-ih ter japonski dve izgubljeni desetletji po letu 1991) sta nam vseeno dali znanje glede tega, kako se obnaša gospodarstvo v času likvidnostne pasti oziroma ničelnih obrestnih mer (ki so na ničelni ravni že od začetka krize) in katere so opcije ekonomske politike v takih razmerah. Standardni makroekonomski model (IS-LM), ki se ga študenti učijo pri Makro 1, zelo nazorno pokaže, da je v razmerah ničelnih obrestnih mer denarna politika impotentna in da je edina politika, ki lahko stimulira gospodarsko rast, fiskalna politika (za tiste, ki ste prešpricali makroekonomijo, je tukaj kratek povzetek delovanja monetarne in fiskalne politike v času likvidnostne pasti). Ta standardni IS-LM model tudi jasno pokaže, da v takšnih razmerah ničelnih obrestnih mer monetarna politika in fiskalna politika ne moreta dvigniti inflacije, kar je bil glavni strah in eden izmed dveh glavnih argumentov monetaristov za nujnost politike varčevanja (drug argument je, da povečano vladno zadolževanje iztiska privatne investicije).

In drugič, argument Rogoffa glede V. Britanije, da je bila odločitev za politiko varčevanja pravilno zavarovanje pred nepredvidljivimi finančnimi trgi, je neumnost. V. Britanija ima svojo valuto in lahko začasno natiska denarja, kolikor hoče, in se tako ubrani špekulativnega umika kapitala. Glede tega drugega je podobnega mnenja Simon Wren-Lewis (Oxford University):

So let us agree that it was possible to imagine, particularly in 2010, that the markets might stop buying UK government debt. What does not follow is that austerity was an appropriate insurance policy. No one sensible disagrees that the government needed to have a credible long term plan for debt sustainability, and I personally have argued that a good plan should involve reducing net debt very gradually to levels below those observed before the recession. I hope Rogoff would agree that in the absence of any risk coming from the financial markets, it is optimal to delay fiscal tightening until the recovery is almost complete. The academic literature is clear that, in the absence of default risk, debt adjustment should be very gradual, and that fiscal policy should not be pro-cyclical. So the insurance policy involves departing from this wisdom. This has a clear cost in terms of lost output, but an alleged potential benefit in reducing the chances of a debt crisis.

Seen in this light, the first point to note is that – unlike most insurance – the benefits are partial and ill-defined. Austerity might make the markets less likely to turn on you, but it clearly does not guarantee that they will not. It is also quite reasonable to suggest that – to the extent austerity delays the recovery – it might make markets more rather than less worried about long term debt sustainability. So this is an insurance policy with a large cost, and a very unclear benefit.

What the Rogoff piece does not address at all is that the UK already has an insurance policy, and it is called Quantitative Easing (QE). QE means that the monetary authority is committed to keeping long term interest rates low, so they will buy any government debt that cannot be sold to the financial markets. Rogoff says that, if the markets suddenly forsook UK government debt “UK leaders would have been forced to close massive budget deficits almost overnight.” With your own central bank this is not the case – you can print money instead.

Now pretty well everyone agrees that printing money to cover unsustainable budget deficits is inflationary. But that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about a government with a long term feasible plan for debt sustainability, faced with an irrational market panic. In those circumstances, printing money will be purely temporary, for as long as the panic lasts. As it is taking place in the depth of a recession, it will not be inflationary. So, as I argued long ago, Quantitative Easing is our insurance policy against a debt crisis. We never needed the much more costly, far inferior and potentially dubious additional insurance policy of austerity.

Vir: Simon Wren-Lewis, Mainly Macro