For down and out Greeks, the U.K. is the promised land with jobs aplenty bloom.bg/1Lwcc55 http://t.co/XHHXxdTUiN—
Bloomberg Business (@business) July 24, 2015
Is the socialist solution to the Greek economic crisis working?
25 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, currency unions, economic growth, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), international economics, law and economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, property rights Tags: capital controls, capital flight, Greece, labour exodus, sovereign defaults
What is Free Banking and Why Should I Care?
21 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in industrial organisation, law and economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, property rights Tags: free banking
John Cochrane on a big hole in the Greek bailout (and media analysis of the bailout)
15 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in currency unions, Euro crisis, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: bank runs, banking panics, Greece, John Cochrane, lender of last resort, sovereign bailouts, sovereign default
An average of 41% of Greek bank assets are non-performing, with loan repayments 90 days overdue or more (Barclays). http://t.co/HfXV8uapkj—
Mike Bird (@Birdyword) July 13, 2015
Financial crises surprisingly common, but few countries close their banks
10 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in business cycles, currency unions, economic history, economics of regulation, Euro crisis, financial economics, global financial crisis (GFC), law and economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, property rights Tags: bank runs, banking crises, banking panic, financial crises, Greece, sovereign default
Financial crises surprisingly common, but few countries close their banks pewrsr.ch/1NQyz2P #Greece http://t.co/pK0sfB49Ka—
PewResearch FactTank (@FactTank) July 09, 2015
Real and Pseudo-Financial Crises, the Chinese share market crash and Anna Schwartz
09 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, financial economics, fiscal policy, international economics, macroeconomics, monetarism, monetary economics Tags: Anna Schwartz, bank runs, banking panics, China, contagion, evidence-based policy, financial crises, financial stability, inflation targeting, international systemic risk, Michael Bordo, monetary history, pseudo financial crises, pseudo international systemic risk
If we could take time out from the breathless journalism about the Chinese stock market, which some people may have heard of before this week, it’s crash should be seen through the lens that Anna Schwartz developed in 1987 of a pseudo financial crisis and a financial crisis.
This is why so many Chinese companies are suspended bloom.bg/1UA7TbA http://t.co/5awEt6B23u—
Bloomberg Business (@business) July 08, 2015
Her paper is written at the same time as the 1987 stock market crash. On financial crises, Anna Schwartz said:
As for those pseudo financial crises, she said:
Schwartz’s principal concern with regard to pseudo financial crisis was:
proposals to deal with pseudo-financial crises is the perpetuation of policies that promote inflation and waste of economic resources
As we are talking about the Chinese stock market, Anna Schwartz also wrote about the concepts of real systemic international risk and and pseudo international systemic risk.
Once again, and as with pseudo financial crises and real financial crises, what distinguishes real systemic international risk and pseudo international systemic risk is a threat to the payment system. The threat of bank runs, which can easily be eliminated through lender of last resort facilities:
As always it is about the security of the payments system – of avoiding bank runs, not private losses:
The lesson for the day is that when people start panicking about the economy or the stock market or international markets, don’t go to a macroeconomist for advice, go to a monetary historian. They have seen it all before.
Scotland already has its own currency ripe for a currency board?
07 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in currency unions, economic history, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: British economy, British politics, currency boards, free banking, Ireland, Scotland, Scottish independence
Since 1844, the Bank of Scotland, Clydesdale Bank and The Royal Bank of Scotland have been allowed to issue banknotes in denominations of £5, £10, £20, £50 and £100. Only the Royal Bank of Scotland continues to issue a small volume of £1 notes. Two Northern Irish banks have similar prerogatives.
These Scottish banknotes are not legal tender in England. No banknotes have legal tender status in Scotland, whether issued by Scottish banks or the Bank of England. The Bank of England says:
Scottish and Northern Ireland banknotes are fully backed at all times by ring-fenced backing assets partly held in Bank of England notes and UK coin, and partly as balances on accounts maintained by the issuing banks at the Bank of England.
Consequently, holders of genuine Scottish and Northern Ireland banknotes have the same level of protection as that available to holders of genuine Bank of England notes.
The acceptability of any means of payment, including banknotes, is essentially a matter for agreement between the parties involved in a transaction in Scotland.
Bank of England keeps control Scottish bank notes in issue by stipulating that the issuing bank hold in their reserves the same amount of UK money (either in cash or on deposit at the Bank of England) as the Scottish notes they issue. These reserves could easily be converted to a currency board.
- A currency board issues local notes and coins anchored to a foreign currency (e.g. Sterling) backed by government bonds with 1 pound sterling pound sterling and British government bonds for every Scottish pound currency note issued.
- A currency board issues domestic notes and coins only when there are foreign-exchange reserves to back it. In the case of a Scottish currency board, there would be pounds Sterling reserves to back any Scottish pounds and currency notes on issue.
The Hong Kong currency board has operated successfully through 30 years of financial turbulence and radical constitutional change. There is no reason why a Scottish currency board could not do likewise, guaranteeing the convertibility of a Scots pound, initially at parity with the English pound sterling.
After independence, Ireland acted effectively as a currency board until the 1970s. Currency boards were commonplace throughout the British Empire and were highly successful.
- On the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922, the introduction of an independent currency was a low priority because 98% of exports and 80% of imports were with the UK.
- British banknotes and notes issued by Irish banks circulated (but only the first were legal tender) and coins remained in circulation.
Under the Currency Act 1927, the Saorstát Pound (Free State Pound) was created at parity with the British Pound Sterling. A Currency Commission kept British government securities, sterling cash, and gold to keep a 1:1 relationship between the two currencies.
Although a Central Bank of Ireland was created in 1943, the Irish punt remained linked to sterling with the central bank operated as a de facto currency board policy until joining the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1979.
A currency board has no capacity to act as a lender of last resort to a Scottish banking system.
Tom Sargent keynote address Emergency Economic Summit for Greece (1 June 2015)
26 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, currency unions, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: EU, Euroland, Greece, sovereign borrowing, sovereign defaults, Thomas Sargent
The U.S. bailout barometer.
19 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in business cycles, financial economics, monetary economics, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: bailouts, deposit insurance, implicit guarantees, lender of last resort
Sir Humphrey was right on why Britain entered the common market in 1973? Real GDP growth per working age British and French, PPP, detrended, 1950 – 2013
11 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), macroeconomics, monetarism, monetary economics Tags: British disease, British economy, Eurosclerosis, France, Margaret Thatchernomics, sick man of Europe
Figure 1: Real GDP per British and French aged 15-64, converted to 2013 price level with updated 2005 EKS purchasing power parities, 1.9 per cent detrended, 1950-2013
Source: Computed from OECD Stat Extract and The Conference Board, Total Database, January 2014, http://www.conference-board.org/economics
Figure 2: Real GDP per British and French aged 15-64, converted to 2013 price level with updated 2005 EKS purchasing power parities, 1.9 per cent detrended, base 100 = 1974, 1950-2013
Source: Computed from OECD Stat Extract and The Conference Board, Total Database, January 2014, http://www.conference-board.org/economics
In figure 2, a flat line represents annual real GDP growth at a rate of 1.9%, which is the trend rate of annual growth of the USA in the 20th century. A rising line means annual growth at above that trend rate; a falling line means annual growth at below that trend rate of 1.9% per year.
What Will Happen to a Generation of Wall Street Traders Who Have Never Seen a Rate Hike?
03 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic history, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: monetary policy, The Fed
Maybe joining Euroland isn’t that bad after all
08 May 2015 Leave a comment
in business cycles, currency unions, development economics, Euro crisis, global financial crisis (GFC), growth miracles, international economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: Eastern Europe, Euroland, European Union, Eurosclerosis, transitional economies
#Dailychart: How "New Europe" has fared on its tenth birthday econ.st/1fwOg33 http://t.co/AvkCqHmzAf—
The Economist (@ECONdailycharts) May 01, 2014
A history of commerce
06 May 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, monetary economics Tags: mediums of exchange
On the New Deal and the rule of law
01 May 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - USA Tags: gold standard, New Deal, regime uncertainty, rule of law
British, German and French inflation rates adjusted for 1.5% new goods and quality bias, 1994-2014
24 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetary economics
There has been close to zero inflation in France and Germany for almost 20 years now. The UK had mild deflation between 1998 and 2005, followed by a spike in inflation.
Source: OECD StatExtract.
Note that the 1.5% bias adjustment includes other known biases in the CPI in addition to new goods and quality variation.
Has New Zealand been in deflation since 2012?
21 Apr 2015 Leave a comment
in global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: CPI bias, deflation, inflation, monetary policy
All agree that the consumer price index (CPI) is biased and overstates inflation. In 1996, economists hired by the Senate Finance Committee estimated that the U.S. CPI overstates annual inflation by 1.1% (Boskin et al. 1996). That estimated CPI bias has not gotten smaller with time. It is now up to 1.5%, even 2%.
One of the rationales for the inflation target of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand of 0-2% was the 2% was to account for the consumer price index was biased upwards. Targeting 0% would lead to mild deflation when inflation was properly measured.
The main biases in the consumer price index everywhere come from how to handle changes in the quality of goods and services and how to deal with completely new goods and services.
I thought I might see what happened if I took this one and a half percentage point annual bias in the CPI estimated for the USA and adjusted the New Zealand CPI inflation rates available at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s website over the last 20 years or so with this number.
If these consumer price index bias adjustments are correct, and they are roughly correct, inflation came to a dead stop in New Zealand after the global financial crisis in 2008, spiked again, and then moved into deflation in 2012. If anything, there’s been a mixture of price stability and the deflation since 2012.
People get quite hot and bothered with deflation. The New Zealand economy has been in a deflationary phase since the beginning of 2012 but it is recently grown so quickly that it is referred to in the media as the rock-star economy.
Breathless journalism aside , fears of inflation are just a legacy of the great depression in the 1930s. The only depression where deflation was accompanied by mass unemployment was the Great Depression. Mild deflation with good growth is a common phenomena as Atkinson and Kehoe found:
Are deflation and depression empirically linked? No, concludes a broad historical study of inflation and real output growth rates.
Deflation and depression do seem to have been linked during the 1930s. But in the rest of the data for 17 countries and more than 100 years, there is virtually no evidence of such a link.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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