The onset of deflation

By Xavier Timbeau

This text summarizes the April 2013 forecasts of the OFCE.

The global economic and financial crisis that began in late 2008 is now entering its fifth year. For the European Union, 2012 has been another year of recession, showing just how much the prospect of an end to the crisis, heralded so many times, has been contradicted by economic developments. Our forecasts for 2013 and 2014 can be summarized rather ominously: the developed countries will remain mired in a vicious circle of rising unemployment, protracted recession and growing doubts about the sustainability of public finances.

From 2010 to 2012, the fiscal measures already taken or announced have been unprecedented for the euro zone countries (-4.6% of GDP), the United Kingdom (-6% of GDP) and the United States (-4.7% of GDP). The fiscal adjustment in the US that has been long delayed but finally precipitated by the lack of political consensus between Democrats and Republicans will take place again in 2013 and 2014. In 2014, austerity in the euro zone will ease, although it will continue at an intense level in the countries still in deficit, which are also those with the highest fiscal multipliers.

In a context of high multipliers, the fiscal effort has a cost in terms of activity. This phrase, taken from Marco Buti, chief economist of the European Commission, sounds like both a confession and a euphemism – a confession, because the acknowledgement of the high value of the fiscal multipliers came late and was neglected too long; Olivier Blanchard and David Leigh recall that this problem led to systematic forecast errors and that these errors were much larger in countries in the worst situations undertaking the largest deficit reductions.

But the undervaluation of the multipliers also meant that the hopes accompanying deficit reduction were disappointed. The “unexpectedly” heavy impact of the austerity plans on activity has meant lower tax revenues, and thus a smaller reduction in the deficit. In attempting to meet their nominal deficit targets regardless of the cost, the States have only exacerbated the fiscal effort.

A confession like this might suggest that the error was inevitable and that the lesson has been drawn. This is not the case. First, since 2009, many voices were raised warning that the multipliers might be higher than in “normal times”, that the possibility of the kind of expansive consolidation described and documented by Alberto Alesina was an illusion based on a misinterpretation of the data, and that there was a real risk of neglecting the impact of the fiscal consolidation on economic activity.

In October 2010, the IMF, under the impetus even then of Olivier Blanchard, described the risks of pursuing an overly brutal consolidation. The general awareness finally emerging in early 2013 reflected an acknowledgement of such a substantial accumulation of empirical evidence that the opposite view had become untenable. But the damage was done.

Nor was the lesson learned. According to the European Commission, the multipliers were high. [1] The use of the past tense reveals the new position of the European Commission: while the multiplier were high, they are now back to their pre-crisis value. This means that, according to the European Commission, the euro zone is again in a “normal” economic situation. The argument here is theoretical, not empirical. Normally, economic agents are “Ricardian” in the sense that Robert Barro has given this term. Agents can smooth their consumption and investment decisions and are not constrained by their income over the short-term. The multipliers would therefore be low or even zero. Fiscal consolidation (which is the name given to the unprecedented budgetary efforts made since 2010 in the euro zone) could therefore continue, this time without the hassles previously observed. This argument is undoubtedly relevant in theory, but its use in practice today is puzzling. It amounts to forgetting far too easily that we are in a situation of high unemployment, that long-term unemployment is increasing, that company balance sheets are still devastated by the loss of activity that started in 2008, and have never really recovered except in Germany, that the banks themselves are struggling to comply with accounting standards and that the IMF Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, has urged that some of them be closed. It means forgetting that the famous credit that is supposed to smooth consumption and investment has collapsed, i.e. amidst a rampant and powerful credit crunch. It means forgetting that in this era when the injunction to prefer the private sector over the public sector is stronger than ever, panic in the financial markets is leading savers and investment advisers to opt for investments in State sovereign bonds with yields of less than 2% at 10 years. And this is taking place despite downgrades by the credit rating agencies because these States are perceived (and “priced”, to use the jargon of the trading floors) as having the lowest risk. Such are the paradoxes of a time when one voluntarily submits to taxation by accepting negative real interest rates on investments and paying dearly for default insurance.

So if the confession seems belated and not to have had much impact on the dogma for escaping the crisis, it also involves a euphemism. For what are these costs that Marco Buti refers to? The price to be paid for an unavoidable financial situation? A hard time to get through before we return to a healthy future? It is by turning away from a detailed analysis of the risks run by continuing the current economic strategy, which has finally been acknowledged as having been incorrectly calibrated, that we miss what is most important. By pursuing the short-term goal of consolidation, while the fiscal multipliers are high, the conditions that make the fiscal multipliers high in the first place are maintained or even reinforced. The period of unemployment and underutilization of capacity are thus prolonged. This prevents the reduction of private debt, the starting point of the crisis, thus perpetuating it.

The fiscal effort has been disappointing in the short term, as the consequence of a high multiplier is that the deficit is reduced less than expected, or even not at all. Public debt in turn increases, as the effect of the denominator outweighs the slower growth of the numerator (see the iAGS report for a discussion and a simple formalization). There are numerous examples, the most recent of which was France, and the most spectacular Spain. But the disappointment is not just in the short term. The persistence of zero growth and a recession changes expectations about future growth: what was analyzed a few quarters ago as a cyclical deficit is now considered structural. The disappointment also modifies the future potential. The hysteresis effects in the labour market, the reduction in R&D, the delays with infrastructure and even, as can be seen now in Southern Europe, the cutbacks in education, in the fight against poverty and in the integration of immigrants all obscure the long-term outlook.

In 2013 and 2014, the developed countries will all continue their fiscal consolidation efforts. For some, this will mean the repetition and thus the accumulation of an unprecedented effort over five consecutive years. For Spain, this amounts to a cumulative fiscal effort of more than 8 percentage points of GDP! With few exceptions, unemployment will continue to rise in the developed countries, reaching a situation where involuntary unemployment exceeds the capacity of the national unemployment insurance systems to replace the lost employment income, especially since these systems are facing budget cuts themselves. In this context, wage deflation will kick off in the countries hit hardest. Since the euro zone has ​​fixed exchange rates, this wage deflation will inevitably be transmitted to other countries. This will constitute a new lever perpetuating the crisis. As wages decrease, it becomes impossible for economic agents to access the financial system to smooth their economic decisions. The debts that have been targeted for reduction since the onset of the crisis will appreciate in real terms. Debt deflation will become the new vector of entrapment in the crisis.

There is, in this situation, a particularly specious argument to justify this conduct: that there was no alternative, i.e. that history was written before 2008 and that the errors in economic policy committed before the crisis made ​​it inevitable, and above all that any other choice, such as postponing the consolidation of the public finances to a time when the fiscal multipliers were lower, was simply not possible. Market pressures and the need to restore lost credibility before 2008 made prompt action essential. If the actions carried out had not been carried out just as they were, then the worst would have happened. The euro would have collapsed, and defaults on public and private debt would have plunged the euro zone into a depression like that of the 1930s, or even worse. The great efforts undertaken made it possible to avert a disaster, and the result of these measures is, at the end of the day, quite encouraging. Such is the story.

But this argument ignores the risks being run today. Deflation, the prolongation of mass unemployment, the collapse of the welfare states, the discrediting of their policies, the undermining of consent to taxation, all carry the seeds of threats whose consequences can only be glimpsed today. Above all, this dismisses the alternative for the euro zone of exercising its sovereignty and demonstrating its solidarity. This argument is based on the idea that for the States fiscal discipline is to be exercised through the markets. It obscures the fact that the public debt and currency are inseparable. An alternative does exist; it requires that the public debt in the euro zone be pooled; it requires a leap towards a transfer of sovereignty; and it requires completing the European project.


[1] “With fiscal multipliers higher than in normal times, the consolidation efforts have been costly in terms of output and employment”, Marco Buti and Karl Pichelmann, ECFIN Economic Brief Issue 19, Feb. 2013, European prosperity reloaded: an optimistic glance at EMU@20.


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