The Weekend Quiz – December 7-8, 2019 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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Q&A Japan style – Part 5b

This is the final part of a two-part discussion about the consequences of a currency-issuing government exercising different bond-issuing options. The basic Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) position is for the currency-issuing government to abandon the unnecessary practice of issuing debt (which is a hangover from the fixed exchange rate, gold standard days). Currency-issuing governments should use that capacity to advance general well-being and providing corporate welfare to underpin and reduce the risk of speculative behaviour in the financial markets does not serve any valid purpose. However, when we introduce real world layers (politics, etc) we realise that some pure MMT-type options are not possible. This question introduces just such a case in Japan. Given the political constraints, we are asked to choose between two options for central bank conduct, when the government does issue debt: (A) Buy it all up in the secondary bond markets. (B) Leave it in the non-government sector. In this final part, I go through some of the considerations that might influence that choice.

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Australian growth outlook remains poor

The latest release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics of the – September-quarter 2019 National Accounts data (December 4, 2019) – confirms what we have been tracing for several quarters – the Australian economy is grinding to a halt, households are trying to increase saving, the Government’s tax cuts from July seem to have been largely saved to run down debt rather than spent, business investment is weak, and government spending and the terms of trade boost to exports are the only thing between now and a recession. And, the government is in denial, thinking its fiscal surplus obsession is more important than protecting incomes and growth. The problem is that if you don’t do the latter, you can kiss the former goodbye anyway. The data shows that annual GDP growth of 1.7 per cent is around 1/2 the historical trend rate. This is a very poor on-going result. The weaker performance started in the last 6 months of 2018 and has continued into the first six months of 2019. However, due to a fairly strong terms of trade, Real net national disposable income rose, which signifies rising material living standards. But those terms of trade gains will prove to be ephemeral. Overall, the quarterly growth rate was just 0.4 per cent. Net exports were strong (terms of trade effect) and government consumption expenditure was strong courtesy of some policy measures in disability, health and aged care coming on-line. Their boost will also dissipate fairly quickly. Longer-term worries include the weakening household consumption growth and the on-going negative business investment growth. The data now lets us appraise whether the small tax cut stimulus the government introduced from July have been very effective. In an environment where household debt is at record levels, the risks of unemployment are rising, and wages growth remains stagnant, it is no surprise that the households are using their tax savings to reduce their risk levels. This is borne out by the rising saving ratio. The overall picture is not good and the future is looking rather dim at present. A major shift in fiscal policy towards expansion is now definitely required.

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Q&A Japan style – Part 5a

This is a discussion about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and the bond-issuing options for a currency-issuing government such as Japan and Australia. We will consider the three options that such a government has and discuss each from an MMT perspective. What an MMT understanding allows is a thorough appreciation of the consequences of each option. The conclusions we reach are quite different from those presented in mainstream macroeconomics, mostly due to the fact that we do not consider the bonds to be necessary to fund government spending beyond tax revenue and construct the operations of the central bank and the commercial banks to accord to the way they operate in reality rather than in the fictional world of the mainstream. This discussion also recognises the political dimensions of government rather than the technical way we often consider things in MMT. This is the first-part of a two-part answer which I will conclude on Thursday. Today, we consider the emergence of the so-called ‘reflationists’ in Japan who advocated large-scale, non-standard monetary policy in the late 1990s as a solution to the ‘Great Stagnation’ that had beset the Japanese economy.

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European Union – business as usual as the madness continues

At the weekend, the German Social Democratic Party elected a new leadership from the Left of the Party, in the hope of resurrecting their disastrous political standings (Source), In rejecting the other main contender, current Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, the decision has apparently threatened the GroKo (Große Koalition), the coalition between Merkel’s CDU/CSU union and the SPD, which, arguably, has been the reason for the declining fortunes of the SPD. They have, in effect, abandoned their charter and become part of the neoliberal, austerity machine. The new leadership rejects the basis for the GroKo. At present, the SPD is only marginally ahead of the far-right AfD with the Union and Greens ahead of them. The same political dislocations are happening throughout Europe although the antagonism to the neoliberal austerity orthodoxy is more manifesting in chaos than a defined direction away from the major political parties (Britain is currently a good example of that). Meanwhile, the orthodoxy continues in the European Commission and in its – Autumn 2019 Economic Forecast: A challenging road ahead – they are requiring the majority of Member States to inflict more austerity on their nations even though a recession is looming. That is, business as usual as the madness continues.

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