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Austerity: the History of a Dangerous Idea Mark Blyth Brown University and Watson Ins6tute Bernard Schwartz Globaliza6on Ini6a6ve SAIS, Washington DC, April 15th 2013
Before we get to the Theory
Its useful to know why I’m interested in this ques6on…
Europe is not in Great Fiscal Health
Source: Standard & Poor’s from na6onal sources
(Central government debt as percent of GDP, 2012)
0 50 100 150 200 250
Canada
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Portugal
Spain
United Kingdom
United States
Net Gross
So What Brought About this “Fine Mess?”
ECB ‘Credibility’ or the Greatest Moral Hazard Trade in Human History?
This is what happens when you stuff your boots with periphery debts-‐gone-‐bad
0
10
20
30
40
% GDP
Foreign banks combined consolidated claims on Greece, Ireland,
Italy, Portugal, Spain (% GDP 2011)
6
The result is…
Assets held by banks in Germany, France, and the UK are about double the annual GDP of the en6re EU
0
5000000
10000000
15000000
20000000
25000000
30000000
35000000
40000000
45000000
50000000
GDP Bank Assets
Other
UK
Germany
France
• Gross contribu6on to GDP and Bank Assets in the EU (millions of EUR)
For Comparison – The “too Big to Fail” USA
Bank Assets (millions of USD) Bank Assets (% of GDP)
0
2,000,000
4,000,000
6,000,000
8,000,000
10,000,000
12,000,000
14,000,000
16,000,000
18,000,000
20,000,000
Bank Assets GDP
GDP
Other
Wells Fargo
Ci6group
Bank of America
Morgan Stanley
JP Morgan
Goldman
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
GDP Top 6 Bank Assets Total Bank Assets
At least the Brits have their own currency
Bank Assets (millions of GBP) Bank Assets (% of GDP)
0.00
1,000,000.00
2,000,000.00
3,000,000.00
4,000,000.00
5,000,000.00
6,000,000.00
7,000,000.00
8,000,000.00
9,000,000.00
Bank Assets GDP
GDP
Other
HSBC
Lloyds
RBS
Barclays
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
GDP Top 4 Bank Assets Total Bank Assets
France is the exemplar of the ‘too Big to BAIL’ problem
Bank Assets (millions of EUR) Bank Assets (% of GDP)
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
GDP Top 3 Bank Assets Total Bank Assets 0.00
1,000,000.00
2,000,000.00
3,000,000.00
4,000,000.00
5,000,000.00
6,000,000.00
7,000,000.00
8,000,000.00
9,000,000.00
10,000,000.00
Bank Assets GDP
GDP
Other
Societe Generale
Credit Agricole
BNP Paribas
If that goes bad, its game over for the Euro and the core banks
…which is why we have Austerity policies…
Keeping the periphery in at all costs
• Stopping the Bank run round the bond market…
But… You Can’t Solve a Banking
Problem with Budget Cuts You Can’t run a Gold Standard in a Democracy You Can’t Solve a Solvency Problem with a Liquidity Instrument You can’t all cut at once ands expect to grow
So why did Anyone ever think that Austerity was a good idea?
The “can’t live with it, can’t live without it, don’t want to pay for it” problem of the state
• John Locke’s filh chapter
• Appropria6on, Markets and Money
• Aliena6on and wages • Don’t trust the state since it will rob you blind
• But you need it to create the markets you want
“Public Credit will Destroy the Na6on”
• David Hume • Money and Merchants • The Ease of Debt Issuance
• Crowding Out and Easy Money
“The Prac6ce of Funding has gradually enfeebled every state that has adopted it”
• Adam Smith • Parsimony, Savings, Investment and Growth
• Inequality and the Necessity of the State
• Taxa6on to the Rescue?
• Debt and the perversion of parsimony
Locke, Smith and Hume: Producing Austerity by Default
• The “can’t live with/without it and don’t want to pay for it” problem
• The state as the an6thesis and catalyst of the market • Austerity as an absence (state not yet big enough to cut) but also an inevitability that it needs to be cut
• Result: Liberalism’s Neuralgia and the Aspirin of Austerity
Two Tracks through 19th Century Liberal Economics
• Can’t live with it and don’t want to pay for it
• Learning to live with it and Accep6ng the need to pay for it
Track 1A: Liquida6onism
• Modern Business Cycle Theory
• Long Run Capital Structure (too much and wrong type)
• Misalloca6on of capital • Austerity via Binge and Purge
Track 1B: The Treasury View
• Laissez Faire and crowding out
• “Can Lloyd George Do It?”
• The “Memoranda on Certain Proposals”
• Ricardian Equivalence and Investment
• Lack of Suitable Public Works
Track 2A: The Keynesian Moment (or Teaching Birds how to Fly?)
• The CriScal Cases • Simultaneous contrac6ons in the 1930s
• USA, UK, Germany, France and Japan
• And the result is…
Keynes (and events) Overturn Austerity
• Fallacies of composi6on and scalability in labor and money markets
• Investment expecta6ons as a social mul6-‐person PD • “Consump6on, repeat the obvious, is the sole end of economic ac6vity”
• Lessons Learned: • Democracy is asset insurance for the Rich • Redistribu6on and Debt is reinsurance for Democracy
Schumpeter Retreats
• Crea6ve destruc6on over “many centuries” • Lord Keynes’ Ideas “laughable” • Bureaucra6za6on and Socialism as the same
• Results: • The End of the Entrepreneur • The End of Bourgeois Virtue • The End of the Bourgeois Family
Austerity’s Long Winter
A European Home for Austerity • Late Development and
Export Led Growth • Iron and Rye • Freiburg and the State • The economic
cons6tu6on • Compe66on not
consump6on • Sound Money and CBI
• Result: Crowding out Keynes Locally
And an American Pied-‐a-‐Terre
• Banks, leverage and credit extension
• Beguiling the entrepreneur
• The allure of debt • Binge and purge (again)
• Result: Do not intervene…ever!
Austerity’s Enablers
The Neoliberal Shil
• Monetarism, Infla6on, and the Natural Rate • Public Choice and Poli6cal Business Cycles • Democracy as a Problem -‐ CBI as the solu6on • Ratex, EMH and Ricardian Equivalance
• Result: Crowding out Keynes Globally
Road Tes6ng Austerity • Washington’s Consensus “Stabilize, Priva6ze, liberalize…and cut the state”
Austerity Enabled
• There is a free Pranzo if you skip your Cena
• Einaudi and the Bocconi School
• Europe as a disciplinary device on states
• Bocconi school as Austerity’s aircral carrier
• From Milan to Harvard
The Expansionary Austerity Hypothesis
• Debt and 6me inconsistency • Credibility and income
shocks • Spending and future taxes
• The New Cases: Ireland, Sweden, Canada, Denmark, Australia
Austerity as a Policy Paradigm
• Alesina’s Ecofin Brief • ECB June 2010 Report • Troika condi6onality • Structure of periphery bailouts (cuts not taxes)
• Result: The Greatest Bait and Switch in Human History
But Reality Bites?
• Bocconi School defec6ons
• IMF challenges to EFA hypothesis
• October 2012 WEO and 1.5-‐1.7 nega6ve mul6pliers
• The New Cases Aren’t so New
• More debt not less • The REBLL Alliance and the Debt Star?
• And yet it con+nues…