Europe GDP Falls Again: Austerity Programs Lead to Contraction

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Europe GDP Growth, 2007Q4 to 2012Q4

The European Statistical Agency Eurostat released today its “flash” estimate of GDP growth in the European economies in the fourth quarter of 2012.  The results are terrible.  The initial estimate is that GDP fell at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 2.4% in the fourth quarter (or a fall of 0.6% quarter on quarter) in the 17 economies that make up the Eurozone, and that GDP fell at an annualized rate of 2.0% (0.5% quarter on quarter) in the 27 economies in the European Union as a whole.  The 2.4% rate of fall of GDP in the Eurozone, and fall of 2.0% in the EU as a whole, can be contrasted with the recently released estimate that GDP in the US was essentially flat (a 0.1% rate of decline in the initial estimate) in the fourth quarter of 2012.

The flat GDP in the US at the end of 2012 was not a good performance, and has been justly criticized as well below what is needed.  But the fall at a rate of 2.4% in the Eurozone was far worse.  As shown in the graph above, Eurozone GDP has now fallen steadily for five quarters in a row.  Europe is well into a double-dip recession, having never fully recovered from the 2008 downturn, and its GDP is now 3% below what it was in the first quarter of 2008, almost five years ago.

Not only is output falling in Europe as a whole, but it is also falling in each of the major countries.  Especially notable is the fall in GDP at an annualized rate of 2.4% in Germany.  GDP in Germany had been rising at a modest rate since mid-2009, although the recovery slowed in 2011 and has now turned negative.  But in addition to Germany, there were falls in GDP at annualized rates of 1.2% in France and the UK, of 0.8% in the Netherlands, and also of 2.8% in Spain and 3.6% in Italy (not shown in the graph above).

UK output is now even further below the path it followed during the Great Depression in the 1930’s.  As discussed in an earlier posting on this blog, the UK economy is performing worse now than it did during the Great Depression.  The turnaround from what had been a modest but steady recovery occurred in mid-2010, when the newly elected Conservative-led government embarked on an austerity plan similar to what Republicans have called for the US to follow.  But the consequences have been terrible.  By 19 quarters into the downturn (one quarter shy of five years), the UK economy is producing 3% less than it had in early 2008.  At the same point during the Great Depression, the UK economy was producing 4% more than at its previous cyclical peak, and growth was steadily positive.

The fall in German GDP is significant, as it may now induce Germany to agree to steps that would allow Europe as a whole to recover and start to grow.  Germany has been a forceful advocate for austerity in both fiscal and monetary programs, even though (as discussed in an earlier posting on this blog), Germany itself had until 2011 had its government expenditures grow relatively strongly.  But its economy slowed in late 2011 and into 2012, and output has now fallen sharply in the last quarter of 2012.  Germany has strongly resisted measures which would have served to boost European growth, but there may now be a basis for the hope that this will change, now that Germany sees its interests aligned with those of others in Europe.

There are steps that Europe could take to recover from this downturn.  These include:

  1. Reverse the austerity policies, at least among the economies with ready access to the financial markets.  Ten year government borrowing rates are only 1.5% in Germany, 1.7% in the Netherlands, 1.8% in the UK, and 2.2% in France.  These are either below, or close to, the 2% inflation target of the ECB and others.  That is, these governments can borrow ten year funds at essentially zero or even negative real cost.  It is madness not to make use of such funds to pay for investments in infrastructure, education, and other purposes, at a time when resources (both labor and capital) are idle due to lack of demand.  Indeed, it is in times like these when such public investments are best made.  Not only do they boost the recovery, but they do not displace the use of such resources for other purposes.  When the economy is close to full employment, with capital also being fully utilized, using resources for infrastructure and other public investments entails a trade-off, as the resources then used for such public investment have to be drawn from their use for other purposes.  The trade-off might then still be warranted, but it is far better to make such public investments in times like today, when there is no such trade-off.
  2. The European Central Bank should follow the more supportive monetary policies that have been followed by all the other major central banks in the world, including in the US, the UK, and Japan.  The main policy interest rates at all these other central banks have been kept at 25 basis points (0.25%) or below since their economies started crashing in late 2008.  The European Central Bank, in contrast, kept its main policy interest rate at 100 basis points from May 2009 to April 2011.  This relatively high rate at a time of economic weakness led to greater economic weakness, as shown in the graph above.  It then made the mistake of starting to raise the rate, first to 125bp and then to 150bp in the spring and summer of 2011.  The renewed downturn in GDP of the Euro 17 started soon thereafter (see the graph above).  The ECB then started to lower the rate again in late 2011, but it was too little and too late. And the policy rate remains (since mid-2012) at 75bp, well above the rates followed by the other major central banks of the world.  The ECB should lower its rate to 25bp immediately.
  3. Weakness in the commercial banking system in Europe remains a major problem, particularly as financial markets in Europe are far more dependent on their commercial banking systems than is the case in the US (where capital markets are relatively larger).  When the euro was under intense pressure last summer, European leaders agreed to move to some form of a system of more centralized commercial bank regulation and supervision.  But while an important agreement was reached in December 2012, under which the European Central Bank would supervise directly the larger banks in Europe, this agreement did not go as far as had been earlier anticipated.  While it was agreed that the ECB would have direct responsibility for the supervision of the major banks, its authority to deal with failing banks and the resources it could use to do so, were kept limited.  There is also no central system of deposit insurance, but rather still a set of different systems at the national level.  A euro-wide system of bank regulation and supervision, with the power and resources to address failing banks and with a consolidated deposit insurance system, would go far to addressing the weaknesses of a common currency zone.  In a common currency zone, the ability of national authorities to deal with failing banks is constrained.

Europe is now in a double-dip recession.  The austerity programs have failed.  Yet Republicans in the US continue to push for the US to follow similar policies.

Inflation in Obama’s First Term: The Lowest in a Half Century

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Inflation During Presidential Terms, 1953-2012

One of the most persistent criticisms of Obama and the economic policies followed during his term as president is that they would inevitably lead to high inflation, or indeed hyperinflation according to some.  The argument was that high deficits, driven by high government spending (even though government spending has in fact been coming down, see my previous blog postings here and here), plus the aggressive actions taken by the Fed to help the economy recover from the 2008 collapse, were boosting government debt and the money supply, and this would inevitably lead to soaring inflation.

The arguments have been made not only by conservative politicians and political pundits (see here and here for examples), but also by conservative economists such as John Taylor and Michael Boskin, both full professors at Stanford, who served in high positions in the administrations of Bush, Jr. and Bush, Sr. (respectively), and who also both served as senior advisors to Mitt Romney during his recent presidential campaign.  For examples of some of their non-academic writings on the issue (some co-authored with Congressman Paul Ryan), see here, here, here, and here.  John Taylor has indeed like to joke that the US is heading down the hyperinflationary path of Zimbabwe, and carries around a hundred trillion Zimbabwe dollar note in his wallet (as does Paul Ryan) to show people what may soon happen to the US.  And the forecasts that Obama’s policies will lead to soaring inflation continue.

The forecasts were that soaring inflation would soon be upon us.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  We now have data for the full four years of Obama’s first term, and can compare inflation during this period to that of other presidents.  The graph above shows that average inflation over the four years of Obama’s presidency was the lowest of any presidential term going back a half century to the 1961-64 term of Kennedy/Johnson.  It was substantially lower than inflation during Bush’s two terms, was also somewhat below inflation during Clinton’s two terms (when inflation was less than during Bush), and so on back to Kennedy/Johnson.

The inflation measure graphed above is the GDP price deflator.  This is the most broad-based measure of inflation for the economy as all goods or services produced or used in the economy are covered, weighted by the value of what was used.  One could alternatively have used the price deflator from the GDP accounts for just the personal consumption component of GDP, but the results would have been the same:  inflation by this measure was less under Obama than under any presidency going back to Kennedy/Johnson.  And similarly, one could also have used the consumer price index, the common measure of inflation of goods and services used by households, and again have found the same results.

Inflation during Obama’s first term averaged 1.5% a year (as measured by the price deflator for GDP, and also 1.5% a year as measured by the deflator for the personal consumption component of GDP).  Will it stay so low?  Hopefully not.  The Fed indeed now targets inflation to be about 2% a year, so average inflation during Obama’s first term has been below that target (although close to it in 2011 and 2012:  see the graph above).  With the economy still weak, some analysts have indeed argued that moderately higher inflation of perhaps 4 or 5% a year would help the economy to recover more quickly.  Prominent proponents of such a higher target include Professor Paul Krugman (see here and here) and Olivier Blanchard, the chief economist of the IMF (see here).

Inflation can thus be expected to rise above what it has been, and indeed there would be benefits were it to rise to a still modest level such as 4 or 5% for a period.  But inflation over Obama’s presidency up to now has been exceptionally low, and the forecasts by the conservative politicians, pundits, and even some economists that Obama’s policies would quickly lead to soaring inflation could not have been more wrong.

The Job Record in Obama’s First Term: Private Jobs Grew, and Government Jobs Were Cut

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Cumul Private Job Growth from Inauguration, to Jan 2013

Cumul Govt Job Growth from Inauguration, to Jan 2013

With the recent release by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the January job numbers, we can now look at the job record of Obama over his full first term, and compare it to that in the first term of Bush or others.  These new BLS numbers also reflect the impact of the re-benchmarking revisions (done each year at this time), which we noted in a post on this blog in October would likely show a substantial upward revision in the private job estimates in 2012, along with a substantial downward revision in the government job estimates.  The graphs above reflect these new numbers, and show cumulative job growth, private and government, over the full first terms of Obama and Bush.

Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans repeatedly charged in the recent campaign that private job creation plummeted under Obama, while he boosted government spending and jobs for bureaucrats.  The exact opposite happened.  Private jobs were indeed plummeting when Obama took the oath of office in January 2009, as he inherited the economic crisis that had begun in the last year of Bush.  But through the stimulus package and other measures (including in particular aggressive action by the Fed), he was able to turn this around quickly.  The economy started to grow again six months after he took office, and private jobs began to grow a year after he took office (see the top graph above).  Private job growth has continued at a fairly steady rate since, and by the time Obama took the oath of office for his second term, there were over 1.9 million more workers employed in private sector jobs than when he took the oath of office for his first term.  More significantly, there were 6.1 million more private sector jobs when Obama ended his first term term than there were at the trough a year after he took office.  And as the graph above shows, the pace of new private job creation has not slowed since that trough three years ago.

In contrast to the Obama record, private jobs fell during the first term of George W. Bush.  There were 950,000 fewer workers employed in private jobs when Bush started his second term than when he started his first.  They were also not plummeting when he first took office, as they had been under Obama, but only started to fall a few months later.  They then continued to fall for the first two and a half years of his term before finally starting to rise.  And when they finally started to rise, they grew at a slower pace (102,000 per month) for the last year and a half of Bush’s first term, than they did (at a pace of 170,000 per month) over the final three years of Obama’s first term.

Yet Republicans continue to argue that the policies under Bush, of tax cuts and lax or no proper regulation, are necessary to support the “job creators” and lead them to create private sector jobs.  The record shows that the approach followed under Obama was far more successful.

Government jobs followed a very different pattern.  Government jobs (at all levels of government, including state and local) grew by 900,000 over the four years of Bush’s first term, but they fell by 720,000 over the four years of Obama’s first term.  This is a net difference of 1.62 million jobs.  (The sharp peak in quarter 16 was due to hiring to fill temporary jobs for the decennial census.  Government jobs soon returned to their previous declining path as these census jobs ended.)

With a current labor force in the US of 156 million, the simple direct impact, had one allowed government jobs to have grown during Obama’s term as they had during Bush’s first term (the net difference of 1.62 million jobs), would have been to reduce the unemployment rate by 1.0%.  That is, the direct impact would have been to reduce the unemployment rate to 6.9% from the current 7.9%.

But there would also have been indirect impacts, as the newly employed government workers would have purchased goods and services with their new income, which would have in turn employed workers to produce those goods and services.  With a conservative estimate of this multiplier at two, unemployment would now be at 5.9%, which is within the range of 5 to 6% unemployment which is generally considered to be full employment (unemployment will never be zero).

There would of course also be a budgetary cost to employing more government workers.  But it is not that much.  Using BLS data on the average total compensation costs (including benefits) for government workers, employing an additional 1.62 million public sector workers would cost $140 billion per year.  While significant, this is only 2.5% of the $5.7 trillion that government spends each year (at all government levels) in the US currently.  Furthermore, the net impact on the budget will be a good deal less as there will be increased tax revenues generated as more people are employed (both directly and indirectly).

The still high unemployment in the US can therefore be accounted for by the decline in government employment during Obama’s first term.  Had government jobs been allowed to grow as they had under Bush, we would now be at, or at least close to, full employment.  Furthermore, while the calculations here use the growth of government employment during Bush’s first term as the benchmark, that growth of 900,000 government workers under Bush was not out of the ordinary.  Government employment grew by a bit less during Clinton’s first term (by 690,000), but by more during the term of Bush’s father (by 1,240,000).  Government employment also grew by 850,000 during Bush’s second term.

One would expect government to grow in an economy that is growing with a population that is growing.  The growth in government employment during Bush’s first (and second) terms was not unusual nor was it inappropriate.  Rather, what was unprecedented was the sharp fall during Obama’s first term.  Never before in US history (at least as far back as 1939, when the BLS statistics start) has government employment fallen by so much during a presidential term.  The only instance that can rival it is the fall after World War II during the 1945-49 term, when government employment fell by half as much as it had under Obama (by 360,000 then, vs. by 720,000 under Obama).

The sharp cut-back in government jobs under Obama is therefore historic.  It can account for the still high rate of unemployment.  It would not cost that much to hire back the school teachers, health care workers, policemen and firemen that have lost their jobs or have not been able to get such jobs.  Yet despite such historic cuts, Obama is still seen by conservatives as a socialist presiding over a government exploding in size.