소득불균등을 증가시키는 양적완화?소득불균등을 증가시키는 양적완화?

Posted at 2012.09.17 11:45 | Posted in 경제학/2008 금융위기

3차 양적완화에 대한 비판은 주로 "금융·자산·상품시장의 거품만 키우고 소득불균등을 증가시킨다"에 초점을 맞춰서 제기되고 있다. 

양적완화는 쉽게 말하면 시장에 돈을 푸는 것인데, 급격히 증가된 유동성은 일자리를 창출하는 기업이 아니라 주식·부동산시장으로 흐를 수 있다. 소득상위 10%가 주식시장의 75%를 차지하고 있는 현실을 감안한다면 이는 소득불균등만 증가시킨다.

또한, 석유·식품 등의 상품거래시장으로 유동성이 투입된다면 석유·식품 가격만 인상시키는 결과를 낳는다. 소득상위 20%는 소득의 2%, 5%만 석유와 식품 구매에 쓰는데 비해, 소득하위 20%는 소득의 8%, 20%를 석유와 식품 구매에 사용한다. 즉, 석유·식품 가격의 인상은 저소득층의 삶을 악화시킨다. 
(식품이 금융시장에서 거래되는 모습을 설명한 글 - 골드만삭스는 식량위기를 어떻게 만들어냈는가?)

Worse, the Fed’s campaign is increasing inequality. The hope is that quantitative easing will drive up stock prices, making consumers feel richer and spend more. But this glow is felt mainly by families in the top 10 per cent of incomes, because they own 75 per cent of all stocks. Meanwhile, the poor are hit hardest by rising commodity prices: families in the bottom 20 per cent of incomes spend 8 per cent of their income on petrol and 30 per cent on food, while the top 20 per cent spend just 2 per cent on petrol and 5 per cent on food. This link between monetary easing and inequality is a byproduct of the new liquidity link between stock prices and oil prices.

As the Fed started to hint at QE3 a few weeks ago, oil and food prices started to rally again. Fed officials used to cite strong demand in the developing world to explain commodity price inflation, but with growth slowing in emerging markets, supply-and-demand dynamics cannot explain this rally. Trading fuelled by easy money can, however: actively traded commodities such as gold, copper and coal are selling at prices 20-65 per cent higher than the marginal cost of production. Prices of less actively traded commodities, such as steel and iron ore, are falling.


Meanwhile, the US is pushing a third round of quantitative easing, which could be more counterproductive than the first two, since oil and food prices are now dangerously close to levels that have acted as a tipping point for the global economy in the past. Some economists trace oil and food prices to non-monetary factors such as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and drought conditions. Maybe. But at this point, abandoning QE3 would do more good than pushing it, because dropping it would lead to a fall in oil and food prices. That would be equivalent to a significant tax cut for the middle class and would act as a true stimulus for the global economy.

Ruchir  Sharma. "For true stimulus, Fed should drop QE3". <the Financial Times>. 2012.09.10

Name __

Password __

Link (Your Website)


SECRET | 비밀글로 남기기