QE2, Pyrrhic Monetary Policy and a Rise in Inequality

Are Central Banks running out of firepower?

And is the second bout of QE or QE2 leading to both an arms race in competitive devaluations and more worryingly, actually accelerating inequalities?

With policy rates close to zero and years of money printing under the snake-oil terminology of "Quantitative Easing", moribund fiscal stances and private sector balance sheets in rehab zone, what more can central banks do to kick start inflation, if not growth trajectories?

No sooner had I suggested that I was against-trend in forecasting a baseline of no change in UK interest rates this year than we're faced with a change in mood music across the developed world and forecasts of more monetary easing or QE and even negative interest rates set by central banks.

Whilst the aim is to get cash to shift to production, investment and consumption by effectively taxing cash balances held by banks, in reality we are seeing plenty of unintended consequences:

1. a greater incidence of financial and asset bubbles as cheap dosh chases higher yields - from property to stocks and financial assets (the short term excluded). This most will go with.
2. this in turn is I would argue actually widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots, be it within countries and globally.
3. for another day...a rise in competitive devaluations: a falling Yen, a falling Chinese currency and others will follow - from SE Asia to commodity producers. 

We hear plenty of research analyses that highlights a global phenomena - from the US through to the emerging economies - of an increasing inequality of wealth creation and ownership to a narrow group of economic players. Be they the kings of Silicon Valley, robber barons in Eastern Europe or the industrial titans of Asia, the pattern is uniform.

Oxfam's recent report came out with stark figures by countries but a headline one that is numbing to review - 1% of the global population have a wealth greater than that of the rest of the 99% in the world. The same conclusion came out broadly in the OECD's recent 2015 paper and notes "Income gaps are even more striking when it comes to the highest earners. In the 1980s, the top 1% of earners commanded less than 10% of total pre-tax income in every OECD country bar one. Thirty years later, their share was above 10% in at least nine OECD countries and above 20% in the United States."

 There are fundamental reasons in terms of basic governance, fundamental democracy and rule of law that explain many of the fissures in developing and emerging economies that prevent citizens from having rights to education, restricted access to financial capital and in some cases, as we see in north Africa and middle East,  access to education but limited opportunities to find employment. But we also see great strides by countries such as China and SE Asia on the back of growth and growth-based economic models.

Rising inequality is somewhat counter-intuitive when we think of the global reforms since the nineteenth century and following the two world wars, the rise and fall of communism and the rise of the welfare model in the post-war period. And whilst it may be less of a relative issue in the EU, rising inequality is a factor that may explain the political counter reactions from the anti-capitalist Occupy Movements in Wall St and the City as well as the drama that is the US election cycle. 

What are the policy lessons?

• The OECD's focus on structural issues - gender, health, education et al - is the classical development tool kit. They are longer term.
• A clear lesson in today's 24-7 world is that interconnectivity is here and exponentially increasing- be it in ideas, news or alas, contagion - financial fear and medical as we witness for the Zica virus. The corollary of this that international co-ordination cannot be ignored - be it in terms of global efforts to tame disease or economies. It also means sector and country risks are subject to a wider set of risks.
• Loose Monetary Policy is ultimately pyrrhic without a looser fiscal stance in an environment, as a century before, to take up slack. 
• Openness to innovation and growth and allied reward for risk takers cannot be compromised - but it needs to be complemented by efforts to ensure equity and fairness so that "everyone eats a bigger slice of a bigger cake"  - moves in the EU to tackle the Googles, Amazons and Cafe Neros of this world on dodgy tax affairs is part of this.

Divergence in Monetary Policy and Macro-Risks for Emerging Markets

Are we entering a great divergence between the developed world and Emerging Markets, particularly for oil-fuelled economies and currencies?

In the UK the pound has taken has fallen off its perch by 6% against the dollar in the last few weeks alone - is it the spillover from the travails of the markets or in part a response to increasing country risk amidst a rise in chatter of Brexit?I was contra-market in my projections for UK base rates for 2016 and with the continued - possibly sustained - low oil prices, the arithmetic for inflation has changed and in turn the likelihood of tighter monetary stances.

Whilst the Fed's rate rise of 25 basis points was expected and arguably sound given its inflation target of 2% the landscape in the Euroland remains positively soporific. Again, more recent data shows that a lower inflationary perspective whilst Super Mario has in recent days sought to allay fears of an end to QE.

There is a deeper question for another day whether central banks role of de facto lenders-of-last-resort is now the norm and whether markets are addicted. Or what further can policy-makers more generally do in terms of firepower and tools, at least in the developed world, given near zero (or in some instances negative) interest rates and at least in the EU self-imposed strait jacket of fiscal restraint.

And the risk that the debt overhang that began in 2007 and mutated into various forms, has yet to play out.

And the Divergence?

In part this great Divergence is - like many of the economic-cum-financial narratives of the last decade - being affected and driven by developments in the middle Kingdom. China.

Anyone with experience in transition countries and a grounding in National Accounts will tell you how data can be massaged. I suspect that real activity is probably 40%-60% of what is being officially reported. And this in turn is affecting demand for commodities and hydrocarbons despite official orders to maintain production (and more importantly politically - employment) targets although the Chinese are making fantastic efforts at Energy Efficiency and switching away from hydrocarbons.

Three Major Implications I see:

1. In the last couple of weeks we have seen a queue of oil producers, from the big cheese of them all Saudi Arabia, through to Russia, Azerbaijan, Nigeria through to Equador and even Venezuela facing huge macro-instability on the back of falling oil revenues that fuel both external and internal accounts. Saudi is talking of fiscal reforms to cut subsidies and even privatising part of ARAMCO, its oil genie. Azerbaijan is talking to the IMF for a possible support. Whilst most of these countries have followed sweet-talking consultants and set up whizzy wealth funds, these and the FX reserves will quickly deplete if authorities try to beat the markets (Soros or no). So expect tighter monetary policy, falling currencies and higher imported inflation in EM space - particularly for commodity-based economies, but with spillovers to neighbouring satellite economies (Russia and CIS par example).
2. Debt Overhangs in EM. Deja vu 1990s? EM FX loans, particularly dollar-based will mean currency mismatches, although Russia's corporate sector is largely immune following the financial sanctions (although it's still in a macro-mess that will impede Mr Putin's foreign policy aims).
3. Low Income countries haven't really had a mention but those of us who have worked across investment and risk analysis and development will be aware of the potential risk to vulnerable economies and the potential counter-cyclical hit it will have on public finances for economies most exposed. The EU successfully pushed through a package to aid 30 odd countries in 2008 in Africa and the Pacific by helping to ringfence critical public expenditure in health, education and public services - more of the same may well be required.

Western Balkans: Public Finance Management in Kosovo, Policy Concerns and Risk

With focus during 2015 in Europe on the continuing challenges with Grexit-cum-Brexit, the refugee crisis and the political spillovers across Europe, what of the Western Balkans and long-stated hopes of EU accession?

Inevitably, the yellow-brick road to the EU remains of keen interest to citizens of the Western Balkans if not their erstwhile politicians and policymakers who are happy with the current models of existence. Barring major economic and resultant political turbulence this modus-operandi is changing little.

From the EU the same broadly applies. The European Commission’s Directorate General is no longer DG Enlargement but rather DG Neigbourhood and Enlargement (DG NEAR) that takes in countries around the EU periphery from Belarus in the East via Jordan, Turkey and then across the southern Mediterranean to Morocco. 

The EC’s reduced focus on Enlargement in the Balkans echoes the political mood music in the EU more generally about fear of further flows of economic migration and taking on board economies that remain unprepared in terms of basic principles of governance, political accountability and economic freedoms. 

Yours sincerely has had the opportunity to work on macro-PFM-advisory issues with governments in recent years and the one State I had not worked on was Kosovo. So what was my experience and assessment following several visits from late 2014 and 2015?

Kosovo, formerly bang in the centre of Yugoslavia and now a nominally independent State but quite yet fully recognised by the international community, made some fantastic strides in setting up market based institutions…but much of it was setup under the auspices of the UN agencies in control and without the legacy of state institutions that have often proved to be the limiting factor to change and subsequent implementation of reforms.

See also: www.aid-fnance.com

An assessment was carried out on Public Finance Management in Kosovo in 2015 for a major donor that looked at the entire scope of PFM from budget formulation, strategic planning through to treasury management, financial control, public procurement and internal and external audit functions. The aim was also to assess the current PFM stance in Kosovo in early 2015 as it affects Kosovo’s potential access to the EU Budget Support.

One key finding was that despite Kosovo’s heavy aid dependency over the last decade, formal donor co-ordination in PFM has been largely absent, meaning that the potential leverage of combined external aid and World Bank development financing has been sub-optimal. That said, this is not dissimilar to the situation in other Western Balkan states – or indeed elsewhere where donors are often more focussed on meeting commitment targets for meeting aid targets from national capitals.

Overall, the impact of EU aid in PFM reform was assessed to positive but affected by the lack of available administrative and absorption capacities as well as by the lack of genuine demand or political will to implement fiscal and PFM reforms. Impact and sustainability was found to be highest where there has been clear and full ownership – most clearly for the external audit function at the Office of Auditor General – the external audit function in  Kosovo.

Budget planning was assessed to be fairly advanced in terms of classifications, use of a budget calendar, Single Treasury Unit /cash management and a number of IT systems.

For Internal Audit and Financial Control a key challenge has been a lack of genuine ownership.

The picture was similar for Public Procurement in that the binding constraint has been the degree of ownership and political will rather than the design of aid projects. The projects made modest progress in helping to raise knowhow and improve the legal framework that was found to augur well should the recent signs under the new government in mid-2015 prove to be sustained.

Overall, the picture was essentially on par with the rest of the Western Balkans with perhaps the exception of the very advanced external aid function – although the latter was largely due to the efforts of the UN and then EU support and led until late 2014 by a senior former external auditor from Scandinavia but with increasing risk of the function becoming weakened as a true independent channel to assess accountability and value-for-money of public finances. As in most transition and emerging economies the accountability in parliament through budget and Public Account Committees (PAC) was found to be very weak – with but enormous upside potential, particularly in terms of syncing the external audit reports…aka the way the UK’S PAC has often worked hand-in-glove with reports from the National Audit Office.

Capacity limitations and political will to implement far-reaching fiscal reforms are key limitations in Kosovo. Capacity limitations weaken the potential of over-sexy IT systems for budget planning and perversely mean that there is more actual discretion in shifting appropriations between budget lines than perhaps the case in other legacy-Yugoslav states.

This in turn opens a range of questions about what exactly is the best avenue to target external funds in development aid, the modalities of aid and whether there is sufficient leverage or conditionality to force reform. The headline macro numbers hide some basic vulnerabilities including a bloated size of the state that is acting as a de-facto employer of last resort for a large cohort of workers – often politically driven – and in large part due to a lack of sufficient development of the private sector to absorb excess labour. The true unemployment rate, particularly among the youth is very high, real wages relatively low and this in turn has led to an outflow of migrant workers in search of better life in Germany via Serbia that in early 2015 reached a reported 50 -70000, although some of these will now be returning home following the German decision to not recognise citizens from the Western Balkans as refugees.

Impact of the Crimean Annexation and Sanctions on Russian Growth

Whatever the narrative or counter-narrative, the annexation of Crimea by Russia is in effect.  What does this auger for Russia’s economy?

Russia’s growth was already flat-lining before the Russian-Ukrainian “conflict” with concern over the greater reliance in 2014 on hydrocarbons than in 1991 AND the increasing likelihood of a narrowing current account on the Balance of Payments in the coming years.

Did the Putin team do its sums?

Cost of Transfer of Fiscal Responsibilities To Moscow

The incorporation of approximately 2 million Crimeans represents an administrative challenge that Russia will manage although the transfer of property rights will prove more taxing whilst an asset-grab of prized real-estate or businesses has already begun.

Crimea was reliant on transfers from Kiev of around 60% of its budget of approx. $0.5 bn. Add additional (and higher) centrally managed social payments (eg pensions higher than in Ukraine) that Moscow will now have to manage and the expected reduction of both cash-payments from migrants working outside Crimea and the likely collapse – at least this year – of tourism receipts means that the net back-of-the-envelope cost to the Russian budget is around $1.5-2bn per year.

Add additional Russian transfers that will be needed to keep the Crimean economy afloat – and the total bill will be $4-5bn, equivalent to less than 0.2% of GDP for the Russian Budget.  I’m sure the boys from MinFin will have provided something along these lines in their preparatory brief to Mr Putin.

Cost of Sanctions

This is the big unknown. The Russian economy is far more integrated with the rest of the world than is often appreciated.  Even excluding the gas flows that cater for 30% of European energy consumption there is a surfeit of international connections from industry to finance that affect corporates and banks.

The combination of US and EU sanctions was scoffed at by Putin and co initially. However the very inter-connectivity of Russia to the global nexus of markets is already having a marked effect – in particular following the measures announced by the US.  Global banks will be reticent to fall foul of the US’s regulatory net by touching anything associated with the Putin Inc. clan that have been shown the equivalent of soccer’s Yellow Cards.  With regulators purportedly checking bank exposures to Russia, and with recent experience of handling and containing potential contagion, the possibility of a tail-risk event such as a gradual Iran-style financial squeeze led by the US could seriously hurt Russia.

With rating agencies such already highlighting a “negative” for Russia and reports of credit lines being cut, the initial flight of hot funds may prove to be a more lasting factor than Putin’s strategists may have anticipated in their cost-benefit analysis of the Crimean blitzkrieg.

Interbank rates in Moscow have risen over a percent over the last 48 days and the US’s clever focus on Bank Rossiya and the resultant freeze on its quarter of a million credit card holders by Mastercard and Visa will have done more to hit home to the rich upper and middle classes the potential financial impact of even a modest lock-out from the international financial architecture.

Old hands in Russia from the 90s will be aware of the  risk of mini bank runs given memories of two previous Russian financial crises since the Soviet collapse in 91 but I see this less of a risk and the Central Bank will manage any liquidity crises given its oodles of reserves.

One hopes that diplomacy at least de-escalates the situation so that the threat, in particular, of harsher German-led EU economic sanctions dissipates. If not the next round of trade and financial sanctions on Russia – and its likely reaction against foreign investments in Russia by it – will unfortunately mean a greater hit on the Russian economy.

The Putin model relies on hydrocarbon revenue and the short-term risk of say the US releasing reserves on the global market will have less of an impact than imagined as supply is based on agreed forward prices.

However if such a move affects the forward curve and at the same time presages a very likely structural shift in EU energy demand for Russian gas through say a strategic “energy security pact” to import US gas and accelerate alternative LNG and from other supply sources in the Mediterranean, then this will have a harder medium-term hit on the Putin model and its economy.

Compensation for loss of State Owned Assets to Ukraine?

Murky waters and hardly mentioned so far… but assume that Ukraine,  with western assistance, is able to get safe passage out for its military personnel.

And that it seeks damages from Moscow for loss of key refineries and other assets. .. what then?

The “zero agreement” at the time of the Soviet Dissolution amicably done by the successor republics and Russia was for Russia to assume all external debt obligations but also to secure external assets – including Soviet embassies. As the takeover in Crimea is an annexation and essentially – despite Russian protestations – in violation of the Budapest Agreement it signed in 1994 that recognized Ukraine’s borders, it is highly probable that Ukraine could seek damages in almost any western country.

Summary:

1.       The nominal cost of running Crimea will be peanuts but the short term cost for Russia will reduce growth by  1/5% of GDP to around 0.5%-0.7 and lower than the 1.3% year-start forecast.

2.       Russians are feeling very proud of Mr Putin but domestic consumption will be lower as the financial squeeze from the sanctions hits home and the cost of capital rises and imported inflation rises on the back of a falling rouble.

3.       Trade will be affected – both due to the rise in country risk and delay or cancellation of cross-border projects – but also due to the significant impact on Ukrainian-Russian trade, even excluding the risk of putative economic sanctions from the EU. The Current Account could be wiped out.

4.       An escalation of tension will lead to a much higher hit on the Russian economy from the external squeeze – particularly through the financial links - but Putin's government will tap into the huge fiscal reserves to ensure growth remains at least round 0.5% of GDP.

5.       Mr Putin has in effect secured his re-election! In turn the Putin 2.0 economic model will last longer . The EU will accelerate to reduce reliance on Russian gas. Together these two factors will lower trend growth.

Ukraine, Key Political-economy Concerns and Stabilisation

There are several overarching questions and concerns that are exercising the international community, some of which include:

• How did it get to this stage with Ukraine and Russia now on the brink of war?
• What can be done to assuage Russian concerns and de-escalate the situation?
• What does it mean for the longer term for Russia’s neighbours from the Narva region in north-east Estonia through to the ‘stans in the east and even Moldova in the south-east where there are sizeable Russian populations (if not majorities as in NE Estonia)?
• And in turn for the EU that now houses several former members of the Comecon bloc and for its own energy security given the continued reliance on Russian gas and for financial centres such as London a reliable diet of Russian capital – legal or otherwise – as well as listings?
• Concurrently how can the EU utilise its very successful soft power refined during the Accession Process since the late 90s that has helped former planned economies to successfully transform into functioning, democratic, market economies?
• And the Economics: how does the putative conflict between the countries likely to affect the economies of these two countries – both over the short and medium term -  and what are the potential spillover effects onto neighbouring economies? 

As someone who has advised worked on both countries (inc. the Crimea) since the mid-90s I have my own views on these questions from first-hand experience and various writings.

In this blog entry I will focus only on the last question as it is perhaps the underlying and central cause of the current malaise. Although events over the last few months seemed to accelerate toward the end till the eventual exit of the now-former president Yanukovych, to many of us long-time Ukraine-watchers the situation had been steadily worsening with gross mismanagement of the economy and in effect a social mis-contract between the political-economic elite that are essentially the one-and-same to effectively asset-strip the state, allow rampant corruption and in effect created the disconnect and discontent that so fuelled the anger on the street.

Result: macroeconomic instability with the economy in recession since 2012 but which was buoyed previously due to demand for steel from Russia and globally, a large current account deficit, fiscal mismanagement and with FX reserves below 90-day cover.

In the last week has seen the Ukraininan currency, the Hryvna bombed and Ukrainian assets nosedived as investors rushed to the Exit doors.  The threat of bank runs has been temporarily halted through restrictions on withdrawals but the threat of meltdown remains a tail risk without external support. The necessary devaluation through an open float of the currency will push up imported inflation and further reduce real incomes and purchasing power.

Though Russia has too been hit it is sitting on a half trillion dollar reserve base inclusive of oil funds and will ride out the storm…one for another blog.

Ukraine will, however, need rapid stabilisation and to their credit the big guns in the form of the IMF and the EU are already making preparations for rapid-response loans and budget support using the experience from recent years in the Eurozone and elsewhere.

The key question beyond short term plugging of financing gaps will be whether Ukraine will be willing and able to undertake genuine reforms to ensure sustainability. This in turn will depend on how the Russo-Ukrainian spat plays out – the longer the duration, the more costly the impact and the reconstruction/redevelopment efforts.

It will also depend on political will and all the bonhomie rhetoric from some western capitals about the Ukrainian parliament being the people’s senate ignores the rather unsavoury truth  that it does unfortunately retain the reputation of being a Members Club for crooks. Whether this group in the Rada has the courage or willingness to sanction broad-based reforms remains to be seen, particularly difficult reforms to balance the fiscal books through necessary but potentially difficult political amendments to the energy deficit that has been soaking close to 8% of GDP in subsidies.  A fresh election may well be required to give the new government a genuine mandate.

The so-called Orange Revolution in 2004-05 was pyrrhic and a gross disappointment for those that saw it as a precursor of a fundamental redress of governance in Ukraine. Unfortunately, and despite significant good-will and dollops of western assistance thereafter there was little real appetite in Kiev to modify the status quo and despite some sterling efforts to kick-start reform at a regional levels.

Hopefully, the penny has dropped for many of these rent-seeking members of the elite that political stability and effective economic governance go hand-in-hand….and hopefully the sabre-rattling from Moscow will cease….and the hit on the RTS, the rouble and share prices in energy stocks in Russia may well catalyse this.