Zanimiv komentar v The Economistu o “nemški krivdi” glede prevelikega presežka v trgovinski bilanci. Nemčija seveda igra igro “beggar thy neighbour”, ko zaradi premajhnega domačega povpraševanja izvaža deflacijo in depresijo v ostale članice evro območja. Toda pri tem ne smemo pozabiti, da bi Nemčijo lahko kadarkoli ustavila ECB iz Frankfurta. ECB bi, če ne bi bila “tako sadistično osredotočena na nizko inflacijo“, z dvigom inflacije nevtralizirala nemški izvoz deflacije. Denimo, da bi s kupovanjem državnih obveznic povečevala denarno maso ali da ne bi nevtralizirala nemškega fiskalnega stimuliranja (če bi do njega prišlo) z umikanjem denarja.

In tako smo spet nazaj pri disfunkcionalni družini, pardon – denarni uniji, kjer skupne inštitucije ne počnejo tega, kar bi počele, če bi opravljale funkcijo samostojnih nacionalnih inštitucij. Zato imajo dejanja posameznih držav, v tem primeru Nemčije zaradi prevelikega trgovinskega presežka, po nepotrebnem tako hude posledice na ostale države.

That doesn’t let Germany off the hook, however, for a few reasons. One is that while the ECB might be sadistically obsessed with low inflation, Germany could still potentially do something about the distribution of demand across the euro area. If goods and services prices are mostly determined by slack across the euro-area economy as a whole while wages are mostly a function of national labour-market tightness, then fiscal stimulus in Germany would raise German wages more than it would raise German inflation (or euro-area inflation). That policy would sneakily shift demand from Germany to the periphery without bringing down the contractionary ECB hammer.

The ECB might also be interested in seeing faster inflation and demand growth in the euro area but nervous about using asset purchases to try and engineer it. Asset purchases in Europe are politically fraught, since the ECB would inevitably end up buying periphery bonds. The ECB might not offset German fiscal stimulus, in that case, and so Germany could individually raise euro-area demand.

Third, one should not discount the Bundesbank’s influence on ECB attitudes toward inflation. (It’s against it.)

In this crazy world of too-little demand, Germany deserves criticism for its surplus. But given that rich-world central banks could get printing and solve the problem of too-little demand outright, that criticism could be more usefully allocated elsewhere.

Vir: The Economist