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Will Europe's crisis reconcile Asia with the IMF

There is something very awkward in the idea that still-poor Asia will help rescue the still-rich euro area. Asia remembers very well that when in trouble in the late 1990s, it was ruthlessly advised to turn to the International Monetary Fund.

Yet it may happen. Europe is bound by an extraordinary series of self-imposed constraints – no common taxation, no mutual guarantees, no monetary financing, to name the main ones – and European countries have now pledged to contribute to the IMF so that it can intervene in Europe. The desire for matching contributions from the rest of the world was unequivocally expressed by the European leaders on 9 December. The questions are: should Asia follow suit, and what would be the consequences?

Asia has two reasons to offer such support: to protect itself from Europe, and to protect itself from the US.

In the short term, the fallout in Asia of a further aggravation of the European crisis would be serious. This is partly because Europe is a large export market but also because European banks are big players in Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as major providers of trade finance. The IMF’s Spillover Report reckons that through these channels financial stress in Europe could seriously dent Asian growth. 

In the medium term, financial turmoil in Europe would also deprive China and the rest of Asia from an important hedge against a depreciation of the US dollar. Furthermore, before the outbreak of the crisis, the euro was a successful regional currency en route to becoming the second global currency. For those in Asia who believe that the world’s natural evolution is towards a multipolar global economy, it provided a natural building block for a multipolar currency system. Should it disappear, the transition to a multi-currency system would be lengthier and bumpier.

But Asia does not trust Europe enough to invest much directly, so it is likely to opt for the detour through Washington. The IMF is certainly still viewed with much suspicion in Asia, where its failings in Indonesia or Korea are vividly remembered. But at least it is equipped with a governance system in which Asia has a voice, and is bound to gain weight faster if it becomes a major contributor.  

It may well take a European crisis to reconcile Asia with the IMF. And ironically, we may well soon be hearing Asians lecturing Europe on the need to turn to the Fund.

 

Column for The Financial Times' A-List blog, published on December 19, 2011

Don’t admit defeat – fiscal union can still work

Markets are increasingly nervous and risks for the eurozone are escalating. Europe’s leaders may still harbour secret hopes that the European Central Bank will come to their rescue, but at least they seem to have understood that the surest way to make that happen is to deliver on what they have responsibility for, starting with budgets. Fiscal union is now officially on the European agenda in the run-up to the last European summit of the year on December 9.

For some, this is all about strengthening sanctions for budgetary slippages through more automatic decision procedures and granting the power to veto national budgets to a European body. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has spoken along these lines recently. Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, is on a similar page. However, this plan alone is likely to be resisted and in the end, it is not likely to deliver much more than another layer of half measures.

The principle underpinning budgetary surveillance is that each country is solely responsible for its own debt, but that it can be sanctioned after the event for misbehaviour. Alternatively, countries participating in the eurozone could have joint responsibility over at least part of their public debt, but they would also agree to give their partners the right to veto their budgets before they are implemented. To be clear, this would imply that eurozone members agree to provide a guarantee to the holders of, say, Italian debt and have the right to prevent the issuance of Italian debt.

Both principles are logically consistent. The choice today is whether to move towards adopting the latter instead of the former. But the idea of introducing a veto procedure without anything in return is a dream. The unilateral surrender of budgetary sovereignty – a fundamental parliamentary right – is not something democratic countries will easily agree to if they do not get anything in exchange.

This is why, if serious, the debate on fiscal union is bound to involve discussion about the issuance of eurozone bonds. However, these come in many different shapes and colours. The European Commission has presented a number of proposals. The German Council of Economic Experts also suggested its own version.

Ideally, the scheme for issuing eurozone bonds would ensure that in order to be attractive to overseas investors they are at least as safe as and more liquid than existing high-quality government bonds. It should also involve incentives to fiscal discipline so that participating governments contribute to keeping the new bonds on a sound footing. In view of these criteria, the incentives-focused “blue bond” proposal by Jacques Delpla andJakob von Weizsäcker remains the best on offer.

However, recent developments at the German constitutional court complicate matters. The court has ruled that Germany cannot enter into unlimited, open-ended commitments vis à vis partners.

The German experts’ proposal addresses these concerns by proposing a temporary guarantee scheme covering current debt in excess of 60 per cent of gross domestic product. They envisage the creation of a temporary redemption fund that would benefit from joint and several liability and through which participating countries could issue debt in the next few years until they have reached their quota (namely, their current debt less 60 per cent). This debt would be paid off and gradually extinguished over time. To this end, each participating country would be required to earmark specific tax revenues.

There are shortcomings in this proposal. One may wonder what would be the attractiveness of temporary eurozone bonds. Countries with high debt, such as Italy, would benefit from it more than those with low debt, such as Spain, though the scheme could be tweaked to correct this imbalance. It would also lack the permanent incentive property of the blue bond scheme. But it has two advantages. First, the temporary possibility to issue new debt under joint and several liability would give breathing space to countries in trouble, leaving them time to adjust. Second, it would be an instrument to rebuild trust among the members of the euro area. For these two reasons, it deserves serious consideration.

 

Column for The Financial Times' A-List blog, published on November 28, 2011

Europe’s leaders must start making tough decisions

Days and nights, Europe’s leaders have discussed the minutiae of private sector involvement in the Greek debt restructuring. They have immersed themselves in financial engineering with the aim of leveraging the European financial stability facility. This is all necessary, but it’s the job of finance ministers or Treasury officials. What citizens and markets alike expect from the heads of state and government is that they do the job for which they are indispensable, and map out the political choices Europe is now screaming for.

A key reason why the eurozone is under challenge is that markets have become conscious of a fundamental weaknesses in its design. It relies on three hardly-compatible principles: national banking systems, which both finance the sovereign and rely on it as a potential backstop; states that are supposed to be solely responsible for their own debt, so that they cannot rely on partners when in trouble; and a central bank that has not been given the mandate to be a lender of last resort. This trio of principles was assessed consistent in normal times, because banks were sound and state solvency was not in doubt. But in crisis times, a perverse interaction between bank and sovereign weakness develops. And the central bank has no mandate to put a stop to it.

There are several, partially compatible ways out of this. One is to make states individually safe by going far beyond the requirements of the Maastricht treaty and bringing public debts down to levels where solvency cannot be challenged anymore. It implies decades-long austerity. Another way is to make the financial system safe by putting limits to the banks’ exposure to their sovereigns and creating a eurozone-wide deposit insurance. It implies that states renounce the convenience of having ‘their’ banks. The third way is to change the mandate of the European Central Bank. This implies breaking with the Bundesbank’s heritage and giving the ECB a governance structure adequate to a new, quasi-fiscal role. A last option is to move towards fiscal union so that individual state solvency stops being a concern for markets. It means accepting both shared responsibility over public debts and ex-ante oversight of national budgetary decisions.

Provided it is implemented consistently, each of these responses would be recognised by markets as a watershed. Each has advantages and drawbacks. Each has broader implications for Europe. Each involves risks. But a way has to be chosen. As the Pierre Mendès-France, the late French prime minister, used to say, “gouverner, c’est choisir”.

 

Column for The Financial Times' A-List blog, published on October 26, 2011

Europe must intervene to get Greece growing

European leaders have called for a comprehensive strategy for growth and investment in Greece and a task force will be appointed to set out the details of how European Union structural funds could be used to that end. We had floated such ideas in February. Here is what the EU should do.

Money is available in substantial amounts. According to our calculations, Greece still has more than €12bn in unused structural funds, which could be used to leverage loans from the European Investment Bank, potentially increasing the funds available over the next two to three years to €16bn. This, equivalent to 7 per cent of Greece’s gross domestic product, would not involve any additional transfer to Greece beyond what has been already allocated to it in the EU budget.

However, governance must be reformed. The EU structural funds are earmarked for regional development and subject to long procedures, not least because of political give-and-take. Spending priorities have little to do with current urgencies. The EU should pass emergency legislation reallocating the money available to an Economic Revival Fund for the duration of the IMF/EU assistance programme. Spending priorities for this fund should be set to match the economic objectives of the programme, with a focus on growth and competitiveness. And disbursement procedures should be expedited.

In setting priorities, we propose to earmark the €16bn for the following purposes.

First, to increase the quality of higher education. Before the crisis, the quality of education was identified by the OECD and others as an important impediment to Greek growth. There is now a serious risk that budgetary cuts will further worsen the quality of higher education. €4bn should be allocated to funding institutions of excellence, providing means-tested scholarships and financing mobility programmes on strict condition that the funds are used for education only.

Second, it should be used to foster internal devaluation. Greece’s exports amount to 20 per cent of GDP only, too small a proportion for a country of its size. Greek corporations already have some export basis and demand for services such as tourism is very sensitive to price changes. Lower labour costs would thus quickly benefit exports through an improvement in cost competitiveness. The Fund should set aside €4bn for temporary wage subsidies in the tradable sectors (manufacturing and hotel and restaurants), to be introduced on 1st January 2012 and phased out in 2013-2015. These subsidies should serve to front-load the reduction of labour costs while offsetting part of the cost to employees. Some wage subsidies might more specifically target R&D intensive sectors to raise their growth potential. To avoid wage cost reduction being captured by rents, internal devaluation must be accompanied by strong measures to reduce market power and stimulate competition.

Third, the fund should better support enterprise. Economies grow by upgrading the products they already produce and by introducing the production of similar products. In the case of Greece, there is a high potential for upgrading. For this to succeed, small and medium sized start-ups must have access to finance. This is even more urgent in a situation where weakened banks may restrict access to credit. The Economic Revival Fund should allocate €4bn to supporting loans to small and medium sized enterprises and providing capital for entry in the production of new products. Public support should be given on a competitive basis to the sectors with most potential.

Fourth, the fund should support “Lighthouse” innovation products. Greece must target more varied, and higher value-added, production if it wishes to substantially increase exports and income. A further €4bn should be earmarked to foster the creation of local centres of innovation combining centres of academic excellence with special business zones that allow for technological spin-off. Top European research institutions (Oxford, Max-Planck society, etc) should be given a financial incentive to set up campuses in Greece. These subsidiaries should focus on a few key areas (such as bio-technology or green growth technology), with independent management to ensure excellence at a global level by avoiding influence from other parties and being able to attract top international researchers with attractive salaries. Such academic centres of excellence could be the nucleus of a new growth centre.

For sure, financial incentives by themselves will not be enough. Economic institutions need to be improved. The rule of law, a corruption-free environment and an efficient state apparatus are key determinants of innovation and investment. Now and in the future, the European funds should be conditioned on improving the institutional environment.

Our programme has a strong interventionist flavour. This is because as long as the price system delivers the wrong signals, only intervention will trigger the necessary shift of resources towards the tradables sector. A hands-on approach is temporarily needed. Money should be put at its service.

 

Column co-authored with Benedicta Marzinotto and Guntram B. Wolf, published in The Financial Times' A-List blog on July 27, 2011