Raepetita Iuvant

Yesterday Eurostat published  growth flash estimates for a number of EU countries. As expected, they do not look good. In 2013 Q1 the eurozone has lost 1 per cent of its GDP with respect to the first quarter of 2012 (-0.7 for the EU 27). It is the longest recession since the inception of the single currency, and it brings with it record unemployment at 12.1 per cent.

Not surprising, I said, because in spite of increasing talks about softened austerity, austerity ain’t over. In many countries, government final consumption in real terms (the G in national accounting equations, just to be clear) sharply decreased. And this is, surprise, correlated with subsequent growth:

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.

Leaks in the Dam?

Interesting things happened this morning. I assisted to one of the presentations of the OECD interim assessment. There is nothing very new in the assessment, that concerning the eurozone, can be summarized as follows

• The outlook remains negative (while the rest of the OECD countries are doing better)
• There is still room for monetary accommodation
• This monetary accommodation may not benefit the countries that need it more, because the transmission mechanism of monetary policy is still not fully working
• The Cyprus incident shows that there is a desperate (this I added) need of a fully fledged banking union
• EMU countries need to continue on the path of fiscal stabilization, even if automatic stabilizers should be allowed to fully play their role, even at the price of missing nominal targets

Cyprus. Been There, Seen That

A small country is on the verge of bankruptcy. It is so small that the amount of money needed to save it (17bn euros) amounts to less than 0.12 per cent of the eurozone GDP (no typos here. It is around 30 euros per European citizen).
Been there, seen that. Just three years ago in another small country, Greece. At the time, procrastination, self interest, ineptitude, unpreparedness, made the small problem become huge. And we are all still paying the bill. The Greek crisis management was so successful that our leaders are happily embarking in the same dynamics: improvised, dangerous, half-baked solutions, supposedly designed to avoid free riding (the protestant syndrome, once again) and in fact destabilizing the whole system.

There is no need for me to repeat what has been understood everywhere except, as usual, in Berlin, Frankfurt and Brussels: the tax on deposits breaks an implicit pact between governments and depositors, and fragilizes the banking systems of the whole periphery of the eurozone.

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.

Should Paris Go East?

Last week I was invited to speak at a conference on the relationship between France and Germany, 50 years after the Elysée Treaty. It was an occasion to look at France’s options for the near future.

I started by highlighting the French weakness in this particular moment:

• France suffers, like all other eurozone countries, from a protracted period of slow growth; it is the effect of the global crisis, and its vicious evolution into a local sovereign debt crisis.
• This problem is compounded by the structural weakness of France, witnessed by its deteriorating external position in the past 15 years. A loss of competitiveness that contrasts  with the increasing strength of Germany.

The commonsensical solution seems therefore to “do like Germany”: structural reforms aimed at lower wages and lower taxes on firms, in order to improve competitiveness (I did not say it, but this of course goes together with a reduced role of the government and a leaner welfare state). Nevertheless, i pointed out  that there are a lot of “buts“, that make the solution less commonsensical than it would appear at first sight:

Explaining the Euro Problems in Six Minutes

Last week I had a short interview with France 24 in which I tried  to squeeze in just a few minutes  the contrast between the global imbalances view and the Berlin view.

Wait and See

In a moment of chaos, in which it is very difficult to even simply make sense of actual events, it becomes almost impossible to formulate forecasts. I would not be able to bet on grexit (or porxit, spaxit, itaxit, for that matter), in one sense or in another. I just wait and see.

A few things seem to be changing the broad picture, with a mix of encouraging elements, and added uncertainty.

Fact number one: The new French president is acting as a catalyst for those who are unhappy about German-imposed austerity. Yesterday’s informal council meeting, disappointing as usual, shows that Hollande has the strength to at least impose the discussion of his themes to reluctant Germans (for example the eurobonds). But it remains to be seen whether him and his newly found supporters will be able to force implementation of the measures they advocate for.

One Swallow Does not Make a Summer

The Financial Times reports  something interesting: Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s Finance minister, apparently is not against wage increases in Germany:

It is fine if wages in Germany currently rise faster than in other EU countries. These wage increases also serve to reduce the imbalances within Europe

Yeah! Finally! Thumbs up! Or not? Let’s see

• The same article says that the remark was probably due to domestic strikes, and not to a change of course on European matters.
• The interview was given the day before an important local election in Schleswig Hostein (lost by the CDU, by the way), and another in North Rhine-Westphalia next week.
• Angela Merkel’s reaction to the French election has been renewed emphasis on fiscal discipline and…
• Angela Merkel’s reaction to the Greek election has been, hum, let me guess: Renewed emphasis on fiscal discipline!

Let’s wait for a few more swallows, before declaring the end of winter…