The exchange rate “needs” to come down?

Anyone who had a good idea about what the the New Zealand dollar should be would be trading on their own account. These super-rich would not be wasting their time giving advice to others. Their time would be too handsomely rewarded for such meagre returns as pontificating to others as to what they should do with their portfolios.

https://twitter.com/JimRose69872629/status/626597273007296514

One of my delights as a bureaucrat was at a meeting between the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the International Monetary Fund some 15 years or so ago

The Fund asked whether Bank whether it thought the exchange rate was too high, and what their exchange-rate modelling say about this?

  • The reply of the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand was we don’t have exchange rate model because we don’t think there are any good. Gone are those days.
  • The International Monetary Fund team was quite flabbergasted by this response.

At one stage the Fund team tried to draw me into the conversation about the level of New Zealand dollar because I was there representing the New Zealand Treasury. I was only attended as an observer, so naturally my response to their questions was to waffle incoherently. I could have been blunter and simply said the Reserve Bank of New Zealand spoke for New Zealand in this matter, but that would have been impolite.

Michael Reddell's avatarcroaking cassandra

I’ve been continuing to reflect on Graeme Wheeler’s repeated observation that New Zealand’s exchange rate “needs” to come down. I’m still not entirely sure what he means. The exchange rate is an asset price and presumably should reflect all expected future relevant information, not just spot information about current dairy prices. And the market has no particular reason to focus on stabilising the net international investment position at around current levels. Indeed, although it is a convenient reference point, neither does the Reserve Bank.

“Need” or not, I’d have thought it was likely that the exchange rate would fall further.

The ANZ Commodity Price Index, which lags behind (for example) falling GDT and futures dairy prices, has already had one of the larger falls in the history of the series.

ANZ Commodity

Meanwhile, the fall in the exchange rate, while material, remains pretty small by the standards of past New Zealand adjustments…

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@ReserveBankofNZ will never be any good at forecasting

Milton Friedman on speculation

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Is the socialist solution to the Greek economic crisis working?

What is Free Banking and Why Should I Care?

John Cochrane on a big hole in the Greek bailout (and media analysis of the bailout)

via The Grumpy Economist: Greece again.

Financial crises surprisingly common, but few countries close their banks

Real and Pseudo-Financial Crises, the Chinese share market crash and Anna Schwartz

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.

Her paper is written at the same time as the 1987 stock market crash. On financial crises, Anna Schwartz said:

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As for those pseudo financial crises, she said:

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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:

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As always it is about the security of the payments system – of avoiding bank runs, not private losses:

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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?

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)

The U.S. bailout barometer.

via The Grumpy Economist: Bailout barometer.

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

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

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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

image

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?

via What Will Happen to a Generation of Wall Street Traders Who Have Never Seen a Rate Hike? – Bloomberg Business.

Maybe joining Euroland isn’t that bad after all

A history of commerce

via The History of Commerce.

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