Draghi the Fiscal Hawk

We are becoming accustomed to European policy makers’ schizophrenia, so when yesterday during his press conference Mario Draghi mentioned the consolidating recovery while announcing further easing in December, nobody winced. Draghi’s call for expansionary fiscal policies was instead noticed, and appreciated. I suggest some caution. Let’s look at Draghi’s words:

Fiscal policies should support the economic recovery, while remaining in compliance with the EU’s fiscal rules. Full and consistent implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact is crucial for confidence in our fiscal framework. At the same time, all countries should strive for a growth-friendly composition of fiscal policies.

During the Q&A, the first question was on precisely this point:

Question: If I could ask you to develop the last point that you made. Governor Nowotny last week said that monetary policy may be coming up to its limits and perhaps it was up to fiscal policy to loosen a little bit to provide a bit of accommodation. Could you share your thoughts on this and perhaps even touch on the Italian budget?

(Here is the link to  Austrian Central Bank Governor Nowotny making a strong statement in favour of expansionary fiscal policy). Draghi simply did not answer on fiscal policy (nor on the Italian budget, by the way). The quote is long but worth reading

Draghi: On the first issue, I’m really commenting only on monetary policy, and as we said in the last part of the introductory statement, monetary policy shouldn’t be the only game in town, but this can be viewed in a variety of ways, one of which is the way in which our colleague actually explored in examining the situation, but there are other ways. Like, for example, as we’ve said several times, the structural reforms are essential. Monetary policy is focused on maintaining price stability over the medium term, and its accommodative monetary stance supports economic activity. However, in order to reap the full benefits of our monetary policy measures, other policy areas must contribute decisively. So here we stress the high structural unemployment and the low potential output growth in the euro area as the main situations which we have to address. The ongoing cyclical recovery should be supported by effective structural policies. But there may be other points of view on this. The point is that monetary policy can support and is actually supporting a cyclical economic recovery. We have to address also the structural components of this recovery, so that we can actually move from a cyclical recovery to a structural recovery. Let’s not forget that even before the financial crisis, unemployment has been traditionally very high in the euro area and many of the structural weaknesses have been there before.

Carefully avoiding to mention fiscal policy, when answering a question on fiscal policy, speaks for itself. In fact, saying that “Fiscal policies should support the economic recovery, while remaining in compliance with the EU’s fiscal rules” and putting forward for the n-th time the confidence fairy, amounts to a substantial approval of the policies followed by EMU countries so far. We should stop fooling ourselves: Within the existing rules there is no margin for a meaningful fiscal expansion of the kind invoked by Governor Nowotny. If we look at headline deficit, forecast to be at 2% in 2015, the Maastricht limits leave room for a global fiscal expansion of 1% of GDP, decent but not a game changer (without mentioning the fiscal space of individual countries, very unevenly distributed). And if we look at the main indicator of fiscal effort put forward by the fiscal compact, the cyclical adjusted deficit, the eurozone as a whole should keep its fiscal consolidation effort going, to bring the deficit down from its current level of 0.9% of GDP to the target of 0.5%.

It is no surprise then that the new Italian budget (on which Mario Draghi carefully avoided to comment) is hailed (or decried) as expansionary simply because it slows a little (and just a little) the pace of fiscal consolidation. Within the rules forcefully defended by Draghi, this is the best countries can do. As a side note, I blame the Italian (and the French) government for deciding to play within the existing framework. Bargaining a decimal of deficit here and there will not lift our economies out of their disappointing growth; and more importantly, on a longer term perspective, it will not help advance the debate on the appropriate governance of the eurozone.

In spite of widespread recognition that aggregate demand is too low, Mario Draghi did not move an inch from his previous beliefs: the key for growth is structural reforms, and structural reforms alone. He keeps embracing the Berlin View. The only substantial difference between Draghi and ECB hawks is his belief that, in the current cyclical position, structural reforms should be eased by accommodating monetary policy. This is the only rationale for QE. Is this enough to define him a dove?

The Confidence Witch

Remember the old times? Here is a quote from ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet, September 2nd, 2010:

[Fiscal Consolidation] is a prerequisite for maintaining confidence in the credibility of governments’ fiscal targets. Positive effects on confidence can compensate for the reduction in demand stemming from fiscal consolidation, when fiscal adjustment strategies are perceived as credible, ambitious and focused on the expenditure side. The conditions for such positive effects are particularly favourable in the current environment of macroeconomic uncertainty.

And just in case it was not clear, on September 3rd, 2010:

We encourage all countries to be absolutely determined to go back to a sustainable mode for their fiscal policies,” Trichet said, speaking after the ECB rate decision on Thursday. “Our message is the same for all, and we trust that it is absolutely decisive not only for each country individually, but for prosperity of all.”

“Not because it is an elementary recommendation to care for your sons and daughter and not overburden them, but because it is good for confidence, consumption and investment today”.

Well, think again. Here is the abstract of ECB Working Paper no 1770, March 2015:

We explore how fiscal consolidations affect private sector confidence, a possible channel for the fiscal transmission that has received particular attention recently as a result of governments embarking on austerity trajectories in the aftermath of the crisis. Panel regressions based on the action-based datasets of De Vries et al. (2011) and Alesina et al. (2014) show that consolidations, and in particular their unanticipated components affect confidence negatively. The effects are stronger for revenue-based measures and when institutional arrangements, such as fiscal rules, are weak. To obtain a more accurate picture of how consolidations affect confidence, we co nstruct a monthly dataset of consolidation announcements based on the aforementioned datasets, so that we can study the confidence effects in real time using an event study. Consumer confidence falls around announcements of consolidation measures, an effect driven by revenue-based measures. Moreover, the effects are most relevant for European countries with weak institutional arrangements, as measured by the tightness of fiscal rules or budgetary transparency. The effects on producer confidence are generally similar, but weaker than for consumer confidence.

The confidence fairy seems to have turned into a confidence witch. One more victim of the crisis. But this one will not be missed.

It is not shameful to change opinion. Rather the contrary, it is a sign of intellectual courage. Two years ago, the IMF famously surprised commentators worldwide with a rather substantial U-turn on the impact of austerity. Revised calculations on the size of multipliers led them to acknowledge that they had underestimated the impact of austerity on economic activity.

Even at that time it started with a technical paper. But significantly, that paper was coauthored by Olivier Blanchard, IMF Chief Economist. It then served as the basis for a progress report on Greece, in June 2013, that de facto disavowed the first bailout program arguing that austerity had proven to be self-defeating.

Let us just hope that in the ECB new building communication between the research department and the top guys is more effective than in the old one…

Ps
I am glad to give credit for the title to Merijn Knibbe, from Real-World Economics Review Blog, who used the term in a comment to my last post.

Raise Fed Rates Now?

A quick note on the US and the Fed. Pressure for rate rises never really stopped, but lately it has intensified. Today I read on the FT that James Bullard, Saint Louis Fed head, urges Janet Yellen to raise rates as soon as possible, to avoid “devastating asset bubbles”. Just a few months ago we learned that QE was dangerous because, once again through asset price inflation, it led to increasing inequality. Not to mention the inflationistas (thanks PK for the great name!) who since 2009 have been predicting Weimar-type inflation because of irresponsible Fed behaviour (a very similar pattern can be found in the EMU). Let’s play the game, for the sake of argument. After all, asset price inflation, and distortions in general are not unlikely in the current environment. So let’s assume that the Fed suddenly were convinced by its critics, and turned its policy stance to restrictive (hopefully this is just a thought experiment). I have two related questions to rate-raisers (the same two questions apply to QE opponents in the EMU):

1. Do they think that private expenditure is healthy enough to grow and to sustain economic activity without the oxygen tent of monetary policy?
2. If not, would they be willing to accept that monetary restriction is accompanied by a fiscal expansion?

I am afraid we all know the answer, at least to the second of these questions. Just yesterday, on Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera, Alberto Alesina and Francesco Giavazzi called for public expenditure cuts, invoking the confidence fairy and expansionary austerity (yes, you have read well. Check for yourself if you understand Italian. And check the date, it is 2015, not 2007) What Fed (and ECB) bashers tend to forget, in conclusion, is that central bankers are at the center of the stage, reluctantly, because they have to fill the void left, for different reasons, by fiscal policy.  Look at the fiscal stance for the US: Fiscal impulse, the discretionary stance of the US government, was positive only in 2008-2009, and has been restrictive since then. In other words, while the US were experiencing the worse crisis since the 1930s, while recovery was sluggish and jobless, the US government was pushing the brake. We all know why: political blockage and systematic boycott, by one side of Congress, of each and every one of the measures proposed by the administration (that was a bit too timid, if I may say so). Whatever the reasons, the fact remains that fiscal policy was of very limited help during the crisis. What do Fed bashers have to say about this? What would have happened if, faced with procyclical fiscal policy, the Fed had not stepped in with QE? I am afraid their answer would once again turn around confidence fairies… The EMU is pretty much in the same situation. The following figure shows the cumulative fiscal impulse since 2008 for a number of countries:   The figure speaks for itself. With the exception of Japan (thanks Abenomics!) governments overall acted as brakes for the economy (Alesina and Giavazzi should look at the data for Italy, by the way). Central banks had to act in the thunderous silence of fiscal policy. So I repeat my question once again: who would be willing to exchange a normalization of monetary policy with a radical change in the fiscal stance? To conclude, yes, monetary policy has been very proactive (even Mario Draghi’s ECB); yes, this led us in unchartered lands, and we do not fully grasp what will be the long term effects of QEs and unconventional monetary policies; yes, some distortions are potentially dangerous.  But central bankers had no choice. We are in a liquidity trap, and the main tool to be used should be fiscal policy. Monetary policy could and should be normalized, if only fiscal policy would finally take the witness, and the burden to lift the economy out of its woes; if fiscal policy finally tackled the increasing inequality that is choking the economy. If fiscal policy did its job, in other words.

I don’t know why, but I have the feeling that Janet Yellen and Mario Draghi would not completely disagree.

Confidence and the Bazooka

It seems that we finally have our Bazooka. Quantitative Easing will be put in place; its size is slightly larger than expected (€60bn a month), and Mario Draghi, once again, seems to have gotten what he wanted in his confrontation with hawks within and outside the ECB (I won’t comment on risk sharing. I am far from clear about the consequences of that).

And yet, something is just not right. I am afraid that QE will end up like LTRO and all the other liquidity injections the ECB performed in the past.  What bothers me is not  the shape of the program (given the political constraints, one could hardly imagine something more radical), but Draghi’s press conference. Here is a quote from the introductory statement:

Monetary policy is focused on maintaining price stability over the medium term and its accommodative stance contributes to supporting economic activity. However, in order to increase investment activity, boost job creation and raise productivity growth, other policy areas need to contribute decisively. In particular, the determined implementation of product and labour market reforms as well as actions to improve the business environment for firms needs to gain momentum in several countries. It is crucial that structural reforms be implemented swiftly, credibly and effectively as this will not only increase the future sustainable growth of the euro area, but will also raise expectations of higher incomes and encourage firms to increase investment today and bring forward the economic recovery. Fiscal policies should support the economic recovery, while ensuring debt sustainability in compliance with the Stability and Growth Pact, which remains the anchor for confidence. All countries should use the available scope for a more growth-friendly composition of fiscal policies.

And here the answer to a question, even more explicit:

What monetary policy can do is to create the basis for growth, but for growth to pick up, you need investment. For investment you need confidence, and for confidence you need structural reforms. The ECB has taken a further, very expansionary measure today, but it’s now up to the governments to implement these structural reforms, and the more they do, the more effective will be our monetary policy. That’s absolutely essential, as well as the fiscal consolidation side. So structural reforms is one thing, budget and fiscal consolidation is a different issue. It’s very important to have in place a so-called growth-friendly fiscal consolidation for confidence strengthening. This combined with a monetary policy which is very expansionary, which has been and is even more so after our decisions today, is actually the optimal combination. But for this now, we need the actions by the governments, and we need the action also by the Commission, both in its overseeing role of fiscal policies and in its implementing the investment plan, which was launched by the President of the Commission, which was certainly welcome at the time, now has to be implemented with speed. Speed is of the essence.

The message could not be any clearer: Draghi expects the QE program to impact economic activity through private spending. What we have here is the nt-th comeback of the confidence fairy: accommodative monetary policy, structural reforms and fiscal consolidation, will cause a private expenditure surge (“[..] but will also raise expectations of higher incomes and encourage firms to increase investment today and bring forward the economic recovery“). We have been told this many times since 2010.

Unfortunately, it did not work like this, and I am afraid it will not this time either. The private sector signals in all surveys available that it is not ready to resume spending. If governments are not given the possibility to spend more, most of the liquidity injected into the system will remain idle, exactly as it was the case for the (T)LTRO.

The concept of countercyclical policies is so trivial as to become commonsensical: Governments should step in when markets step out, and withdraw when markets step in again. Filling the gap will actually sustain economic activity, and crowd-in private expenditure; more so, much more so, than filling the pockets of agents with money they are not willing to spend. This is the essence of Keynes. Since 2010 in Europe governments rushed to the exit together with markets; joint deleveraging meant depressed economy. How could one be surprised that confidence does not return?

I would like to add that invoking more active fiscal policy within the limits of the Treaties has the flavour of a bad joke.  Just so as we understand what we are talking about, the EMU 18 in 2014 had a deficit-to-GDP ratio of 2.6% (preliminary estimates by the Commission, Ameco database); this means that to remain within the Treaty a fiscal stimulus would have to be limited to 0.4% of GDP. How large would the multiplier have to be, for this to lift the eurozone economy out of deflation? Even the most ardent Keynesian would have a hard time claiming that!! And also, so as we don’t forget, at less than 95% of GDP EMU, Gross public debt can hardly be seen as an obstacle to a serious fiscal stimulus. Even in the short run.

The point I want to make is that QE is all very good, but European governments need to be put in condition to spend the money. It is tiring to repeat the same thing again and again: in a liquidity trap monetary policy can only be a companion to the main tool that could be used by policy makers: fiscal policy.

But in Europe, bad economic policy is today considered a virtue.

Commission Forecasts Watch – November 2014 Edition

Update (11/10): Well, I typed a few numbers wrong,  for France and Finland (thanks to Tadej Kotnik for pointing this out). I corrected the data, and stroke down the remarks on Finland that with the corrected data does not beat the expectations. Apologies to the readers

Today the Commission issued its Autumn forecast. It is therefore time to update my forecast watch. Here it is:

Last March, my crystal ball gave me a forecasted growth  of 0.55% for the EMU, while the Commission forecasted 1.2% (In March it was 1.1% but it had then been revised in May). As of today (if things do not get worse, in which case I will be even closer), my forecast error is -0.25%, and the Commission’s is +0.4% I win, the Commission loses.

After 2013, when they were remarkably close, Commission forecasts seem to have diverged once more, at least last Spring. We’ll have to see what the final figure for 2014 is (My crystal ball forecast update gives 0.65%).

But besides playing with numbers, the interesting thing about this year’s Autumn forecasts, is that growth has been revised downwards especially for core countries.

In particular since last Spring the mood has changed about Germany, whose growth forecast has been slashed of 0.5% for 2014 (in just a few months, it is worth reminding it), and of 0.9% (almost halved) for 2015. Also interestingly, the only core country whose expectations have been revised upwards, Finland, is also the only one that got rid of its excess savings and current account surplus.

We all know that the disappointing performance of Germany is due, mostly, to geopolitical uncertainty and low growth in emerging economies. When will our German friends understand that putting all eggs in the basket of foreign demand is risky?

Smoke Screens

I have just read Mario Draghi’s opening remarks at the Brookings Institution. Nothing very new with respect to Jackson Hole and his audition at the European Parliament. But one sentence deserves commenting; when discussing how to use fiscal policy, Draghi says that:

Especially for those [countries] without fiscal space, fiscal policy can still support demand by altering the composition of the budget – in particular by simultaneously cutting distortionary taxes and unproductive expenditure.

So, “restoring fiscal policy” should happen, at least in countries in trouble, through a simultaneous reduction of taxes and expenditure. Well, that sounds reasonable. So reasonable that it is exactly the strategy chosen by the French government since the famous Jean-Baptiste Hollande press conference, last January.

Oh, wait. What was that story of balanced budgets and multipliers? I am sure Mario Draghi remembers it from Economics 101. Every euro of expenditure cuts, put in the pockets of consumers and firms, will not be entirely spent, but partially saved. This means that the short term impact on aggregate demand of a balanced budget expenditure reduction is negative. Just to put it differently, we are told that the risk of deflation is real, that fiscal policy should be used, but that this would have to happen in a contractionary way. Am I the only one to see a problem here?

But Mario Draghi is a fine economist, many will say; and his careful use of adjectives makes the balanced budget multiplier irrelevant. He talks about distortionary taxes. Who would be so foolish as not to want to remove distortions? And he talks about unproductive expenditure. Again, who is the criminal mind who does not want to cut useless expenditure? Well, the problem is that, no matter how smart the expenditure reduction is, it will remain a reduction. Similarly, even the smartest tax reduction will most likely not be entirely spent; especially at a time when firms’ and households’ uncertainty about the future is at an all-times high. So, carefully choosing the adjectives may hide, but not eliminate, the substance of the matter: A tax cut financed with a reduction in public spending is recessionary, at least in the short run.

To be fair there may be a case in which a balanced budget contraction may turn out to be expansionary. Suppose that when the government makes one step backwards, this triggers a sudden burst of optimism so that private spending rushes to fill the gap. It is the confidence fairy in all of  its splendor. But then, Mario Draghi (and many others, unfortunately) should explain why it should work now, after having been invoked in vain for seven years.

Truth is that behind the smoke screen of Draghinomics and of its supposed comprehensive approach we are left with the same old supply side reforms that did not lift the eurozone out of its dire situation. It’ s the narrative, stupid!

 

The Lost Consistency of European Policy Makers

Just a quick note on something that went surprisingly unnoticed so far. After Draghi’s speech in Jackson Hole, a new consensus seems to have developed among European policy makers, based on three propositions:

• Europe suffers from deficient aggregate demand
• Monetary policy has lost traction
• Investment is key, both as a countercyclical support for growth, and to sustain potential growth in the medium run

My first reaction is, well, welcome to the club! Some of us have been saying this for a while (here is the link to a chat, in French, I had with Le Monde readers in June 2009). But hey, better late than never! It is nice that we all share the diagnosis on the Eurocrisis. I don’t feel lonely anymore.

What is interesting, nevertheless, is that while the diagnosis has changed, the policy prescriptions have not (this is why I failed to share the widespread excitement that followed Jackson Hole). Think about it. Once upon a time we had the Berlin View, arguing that  the crisis was due to fiscal profligacy and insufficient flexibility of the economy. From the diagnosis followed the medicine: austerity and structural reforms, to restore confidence, competitiveness, and private spending.

Today we have a different diagnosis: the economy is in a liquidity trap, and spending stagnates because of insufficient expected demand. And the recipe is… austerity and structural reforms, to restore confidence, competitiveness, and private spending (in case you wonder, yes, I have copied-pasted from above).

Just as an example among many, here is a short passage from Mario Draghi’s latest audition at the European Parliament, a couple of weeks back:

Let me add however that the success of our measures critically depends on a number of factors outside of the realm of monetary policy. Courageous structural reforms and improvements in the competitiveness of the corporate sector are key to improving business environment. This would foster the urgently needed investment and create greater demand for credit. Structural reforms thus crucially complement the ECB’s accommodative monetary policy stance and further empower the effective transmission of monetary policy. As I have indicated now at several occasions, no monetary – and also no fiscal – stimulus can ever have a meaningful effect without such structural reforms. The crisis will only be over when full confidence returns in the real economy and in particular in the capacity and willingness of firms to take risks, to invest, and to create jobs. This depends on a variety of factors, including our monetary policy but also, and even most importantly, the implementation of structural reforms, upholding the credibility of the fiscal framework, and the strengthening of euro area governance.

This is terrible for European policy makers. They completely lost control over their discourse, whose inconsistency is constantly exposed whenever they speak publicly. I just had a first hand example yesterday, listening at the speech of French Finance Minister Michel Sapin at the Columbia Center for Global Governance conference on the role of the State (more on that in the near future): he was able to argue, in the time span of 4-5 minutes, that (a) the problem is aggregate demand, and that (b) France is doing the right thing as witnessed by the halving of structural deficits since 2012. How (a) can go with (b), was left for the startled audience to figure out.

Terrible for European policy makers, I said. But maybe not for the European economy. Who knows, this blatant contradiction may sometimes lead to adapting the discourse, and to advocate solutions to the deflationary threat that are consistent with the post Jackson Hole consensus. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Commission Forecasts Watch – March 2014 Edition

Last week the Commission published its second flash estimates for 2013 GDP growth. This allows to update an earlier exercise I had made on forecast errors by the Commission (around this time last year). This is what I had noticed at the time:

The Commission tends to be overly optimistic, and forecasts turn out to be in general higher than actual values. It should not be like this. While I expect a government to inflate a bit the figures, a non-partisan, technocratic body should on average be correct.
Related, it is also surprising that in November of the same year the Commission is still consistently overoptimistic (yellow bar). Let me restate it. This means that in November 2012 the Commission made a mistake on GDP growth for 2012. November!

I had concluded that there was a likely political bias in the Commission’s forecasts, with excessive optimism used to deflect criticisms of austerity. I also ventured in a quick and dirty estimate of the range for GDP growth in 2013, based on the Commission’s past errors. Actual growth turned out to be -0.5%, i.e. at the lower bound of my range (and below the forecast of the time by the Commission, that was -0.3%). I must nevertheless confess that my range was rather wide…

But what about this year?

The Commission on Portugal: Is This for Real?

A quick note on Portugal. Let’s start from three facts:

• Austerity did not work. Portugal is in a recessionary cycle. The economy will shrink by 2.3 per cent this year, more than twice as much as the previous government forecast (and the slowdown of exports to the rest of the eurozone, is not helping).
• Austerity is self defeating: the deficit-to-GDP ratio widened from 4.4 per cent in 2011 to 6.4 per cent last year, and is forecasted to be 5.5 per cent in 2013. Far above the target of 3 per cent that the government had agreed with the Troika. My guess is that it will be even larger than that.
• The magic wand of confidence is not magic. The budgetary cuts did not boost private spending, and expectations remain gloomy. The Financial Times article cites the Portuguese daily Público writing “Portugal has entered a recessionary cycle. People have no reason to believe the future will be any better. The [adjustment] programme has failed and has to be changed.” So long for the confidence fairy…

Is this surprising? Not at all. Austerity is likely to be recessionary and self-defeating, when a number of conditions are met. (a) Monetary policy is at the zero lower bound, and cannot compensate the recessionary effects of budget cuts with interest rate reductions. (b) Trading partners are also in a slump (and/or they are also implementing austerity measures), and hence exports can not substitute for decreased domestic demand. (c) The private sector is deleveraging, and subject to a credit crunch.

The Spring is Nice, but then Comes the Fall

The much awaited European Commission Forecasts for 2013-14 are out. What do they say, in a sentence? That the situation is grim, but that the EU is gradually overcoming the headwinds. So that, surprise, surprise, the second half of the year will be better.
I guess we already heard that.  Every Spring forecast depicts a negative situation, and predicts an improvement in the Fall. And every year the Fall turn out as mother nature meant it to be, worse than the Spring.

I made a back-of-the-envelope exercise. The following figure depicts the forecasts error for each year of the Commission’s Eurozone GDP growth estimates from 3 different time horizons. The same year Fall forecast, the same year Spring forecast, and the previous year Fall forecast. To make it clearer, the three bars for say 2012, represent the forecast error of the Fall 2011 forecast (blue), of the Spring 2012 forecast (red), and of the Fall 2012 forecast (yellow).

I am not expert enough to judge whether these errors are “large” or “small”. Forecasting is a very difficult exercise, most notably in times of acute crises (the Commission underestimated both the severity of the recession in 2009, and the rebound of 2010). Yet, even a casual observer like me cannot help but notice two things:

1. The Commission tends to be overly optimistic, and forecasts turn out to be in general higher than actual values. It should not be like this. While I expect a government to inflate a bit the figures, a non-partisan, technocratic body should on average be correct.
2. Related, it is also surprising that in November of the same year the Commission is still consistently overoptimistic (yellow bar). Let me restate it. This means that in November 2012 the Commission made a mistake on GDP growth for 2012 (and in 2008-09-10-11…). November!

Taken together these two things seem to point to a political use of the Commission’s forecasts. Being overoptimistic, the people in Brussels first try to deflect criticisms of the austerity measures they help impose to most European countries; and second, probably, they hope to trigger the confidence fairy that is supposed to compensate fiscal consolidation and lift the EMU economy from the hole in which it put itself. “Look, things will be better, let’s go out and spend!”.  Vain attempt, if you ask me…

If we take the average error of the past 5 years, and assume that the Commission current forecasts are equally wrong (ok, this is just a game, it really is not rigorous!), we have this:

Then I have my own forecast for growth in the EMU for 2013. It ranges from -0.54% to -1.14%. The Commission forecasts -0.3%. We’ll see…