Who’s Rebalancing

Just a quick note. The two largest surplus economies have lately decided to take radically different paths.  China expressed concern for the imbalances lying behind its large current account surplus, and pledged since at least 2009 to re-balance its growth model towards higher domestic demand. I had already discussed that a little more than one year ago, noticing how the challenge for China was to steer away not only from exports, but also from excessive investment. In the same piece I had argued that while China seemed fully conscious of its contribution to the global imbalances that had led to the crisis, Germany had decided to walk the opposite path.

And here we are. With  timely synchronization, we learn that wages in Bavaria will increase  by 5.6% over the next two years,  maybe triggering a more generalized increase. Or maybe not. While in China they increased 17% in the year 2012.

Even taking into account differences in inflation and in growth, the difference is revealing. China is actually playing the game it committed to. Not only it tries to reduce its dependence on foreign demand; but, domestically, it is trying to boost consumption and to curb investment.

In the meantime Germany is stuck with its small-country syndrome: export-led growth and restraints to domestic demand (both public and private). In spite of recent troubles, austerity remains the course Europe is following (with disastrous results). It is telling that even when partially acknowledging that austerity did not bring the fruits she hoped for, Angela Merkel can only suggest, as an alternative, structural reforms to boost competitiveness. Expanding domestic demand has not, is not, and will not be an option for the German government.

The Berlin View is alive and kicking.

It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over

Update: just a link to Wolfgang Munchau, who seems to make a similar argument.

Austerity partisans had a couple of rough weeks, with highlights such as the Reinhart and Rogoff blunder, and Mr Barroso’s acknowledgement that the European periphery suffers from austerity fatigue.
In spite of the media trumpeting it all over the place, and proclaiming the end of the austerity war, it is hard to believe that eurozone austerity will be softened. Sure, peripheral countries will obtain some (much needed) breathing space. But this is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for a significant policy reversal in the EMU.

Surprise! Spillovers Exist!

Eurostat GDP data are out. The eurozone is in recession, and it is worse than expected (-0.6% in 2012). Austerity is not working, and is recessionary. Wow, who would have said it…

Seriously, so long for the widespread optimism of a few weeks ago. The crisis is not over, we actually are in the middle of it. The way I see it, things will get worse before they get better (if they do get better).

Also interesting, Germany’s export-led growth strategy is  panting. The fourth quarter of 2012 was rather bad (worse than in France, for example), and this is due to lower investment on one side, and to weaker trade (exports fell more than imports). Here is an excerpt of today’s press release of the German statistical office, Destatis:

In a quarter-on-quarter comparison (adjusted for price, seasonal and calendar variations), signals from the domestic territory were rather mixed according to provisional calculations: household and government final consumption expenditure went up slightly. In contrast, gross fixed capital formation in construction decreased a bit and gross fixed capital formation in machinery and equipment was down markedly on the third quarter of 2012. The decline of the gross domestic product at the end of 2012 was mainly due to the comparably weak German foreign trade: in the final quarter of 2012, exports of goods went down much more than imports of goods.

Germany stubbornly refuses to accommodate austerity in the periphery with a domestic impulsion. This makes adjustment for the rest more painful, and impacts expectations at home. This is why investment dropped significantly. My take on this is that if Germany had been only moderately more expansionist at home, expectations would not have been dashed (even if slightly increasing, in January the IFO index of German business confidence stagnates at around 104 at the moment, after hitting an all time high of 115.40 in February of 2011). And investment figures would be substantially better.

So, we learned today that austerity does indeed reduce growth, and that it spills to other countries. Two surprises in one day. It will need a hell of an effort to forget all of this before tomorrow!

One Austerity (Should Not) Fit All

The run up to the Italian elections in February is a welcome occasion to come back to the issue of austerity. The debate in Italy was fired by the widely discussed Wolfgang Munchau editorial, blaming Mario Monti for not opposing austerity. In the heat of electoral competition, this unsurprisingly stirred harsh discussions on whether Italy has room for reversing the austerity that ravaged the country. Some commentators got slightly carried away, accusing those opposing austerity of “silliness and falsehood”. I wonder whether they include the IMF chief economist in the bunch… Whatever, this is a minor issue; the way I see it, these discussions totally miss the point.