Tag: inflation

Why Inflation Targeting?

By Juan Ianni.  Why does mainstream economics recommend the application of Inflation Targeting (IT) regimes? Is it because of its sophistication? Are there other ways of addressing inflation? Perhaps a historical analysis of the roots of what is now the dominant stabilization regime can shed light on these questions.

Although the concept “financialization” is still up to debate, some economists like Chesnais (2001) argue that, since 1970, capitalism has mutated toward a “financialized” model of accumulation. According to Fine (2013), financialization is the derivation of the use of money as a credit other than the use of money as capital. Other authors believe that financialization is the determining structure of other (political, social, economic) structures. Long story short, this would mean that changes in social relationships produce new economic (and non-economic) structures, which replicate the mode of production (or “the dominant structure”). But what does that mean?

The French school of regulation can answer that question. According to the theory they developed, every accumulation pattern (for instance, “financialized” capitalism) needs a mode of regulation. The latter consist of a set of institutions (or policies), which enable social and economic reproduction by solving conflicts (inherent to every accumulation pattern) between agents of the society. Therefore, institutions will appear, disappear and relate in a non-random way, structuring a certain institutional configuration related to the accumulation pattern.

Boyer and Saillard are two of the most influential theorist of the French school of regulation. In one of their articles (Boyer and Saillard, 2005), they identify five core conflicts between agents in every accumulation pattern. Nevertheless, two are enough to understand the emergence of Inflation Targeting regimes: the “wage-labor nexus” and the “valorization of wealth”. While the first conflict refers to the dispute over the economic surplus between the worker and the capitalist, the latter refers to the prevailing mode of accumulation and valorization of wealth.

In their opinion, financialized capitalism is characterized for having the “valorization of wealth” as the central conflict to solve (or stabilize) within a particular set of institutions. In the contrary, the “wage-labor nexus” is the “adjustment” conflict. This means that accumulation will no longer be led by an equal distribution of the production surplus between workers and entrepreneurs. On the contrary, financialized capitalism will ensure a way for wealth to be valued related to credit (and not capital), no matter how damaging that could be to workers.

With the gestation of financialized capitalism (along with its respective institutional configuration process) and the centrality of the “valorisation of wealth” conflict, the New Macroeconomic Consensus was established as a theoretical paradigm. In order to legitimize and deepen this institutional configuration, it propiated the emergence and propagation of Inflation Targeting regimes as a conceptual apparatus regarding anti-inflationary policy-mix.

As these regimes consider inflation as an exclusive consequence of an excess in aggregate demand, contractive monetary policies are “always needed”. In the case of IT, they must constantly ensure a positive real interest rate, which fits perfectly with the need of a way to value wealth. What is more, it decreases inflation by incrementing unemployment, which shows how the “wage-labour nexus” is the adjustment conflict.

However, it is well known that inflation is a multi-faceted problem. Empirical research shows that in addition to an excess in aggregate demand, inflation can be the consequence of the distributive conflict, international prices, inflationary inertia, etc. The way IT address this phenomena (setting a high real interest rate, increasing unemployment, and letting the exchange rate float) shows how it is the perfect piece for the financialized capitalism puzzle. However, since the existence of very close interconnections between the international monetary systems and the national financial markets (what Chesnais call the “financial globalization”), IT’s effectiveness has lowered.

In addition, when the main cause of inflation is not related to an excess in aggregate demand, IT’s efficiency falls. Vera (2014) argues that using IT demands a strong reliance on the unemployment channel (that is to say, to stop inflation, unemployment needs to increase), which has adverse side effects on both employment and income distribution.

Given these drawbacks, some economic schools have developed other tools to tackle inflation, which may be both more efficient and effective. To that end, a different policy mix in which real exchange rate targeting is combined with income distribution targeting can be structured. In this case, the nominal exchange rate could be set to sustain a balanced external sector, whilst income policies could preserve a more equitable distribution of income. Consequently, a low level of inflation is sustained while the “disciplinary effect” of unemployment is avoided.

In conclusion, Inflation Targeting is not the mainstream policy instrument because of its results or theoretical coherence; after all, it has needless consequences regarding employment and income distribution. The main cause of IT’s popularity is that it assures the reproduction of an institutional configuration related to the “dominant structure”: financialized capitalism. Explaining this process, in addition to noting alternative stabilization regimes, should motivate the design and application of economic policies more consistent with increasing employment and a more equitable income distribution.

About the Author: Juan Ianni just completed a bachelor’s degree in Economics, and has a an interest in political economy and macroeconomics. He is currently studying alternative political schemes to tackle inflation, which is a big challenge for his home country, Argentina.

What is the Minimum Wage that Will Employ Everyone?

It is official, the unemployment rate in the US has dropped to its lowest level in 16 years. Economists all around the country must be tapping themselves in the back and buying each other drinks in congratulations, right? Wrong. Despite the official drop in joblessness, we have a decline in labor participation, an increase in the “skill gap” in the labor force (i.e. unemployed workers’ skills do not match those needed by open jobs) and, arguably most importantly, wages that fail to rise fast enough.

For starters, the latest reports show that the year-over-year wage growth rate has been stagnating; it reached 2.5 percent since last year, which is just marginally above inflation. It is difficult to determine exactly why people drop out of the labor force, but we can speculate that some do so because of the lack of pay increases. Whatever the reason, the dropout is a significant part of the declining unemployment rate—e.g. the May report shows that 429,000 people dropped out of the labor force. A nation with a population that is actively leaving the labor force and that deals with stagnant wages is a nation facing serious socioeconomic problems.

The problem at hand, then, is a question economists have been dealing with for ages: how can we increase earnings and employment at the same time? Common economic understanding would argue that we have to choose between higher wages and more jobs. The main argument against minimum wage hikes is that it would increase unemployment. That claim is factually untrue (just look at Seattle) and there are a number of ways to address the issue. At The Minskys we have tackled this topic several times, and shown that a decent minimum wage does not have to reduce the number of jobs out there. One way to have both is with a Job Guarantee (JG) program.

One of the more interesting consequences of a JG program is that it would create a de-facto minimum wage without the need of actually raising the minimum wage. The JG wage would become the minimum wage for the entire economy. Workers receiving less than the JG wage would be inclined to take a JG job, and employers would have to raise their salary offers in order to keep their workforce. Given the impact of the pay offered by the program, it is important that the JG wage rate be thoroughly discussed.

The JG literature has a large number of works focused on the topic of wages. Some suggest the pay to vary with skill-level. Others advocate for JG wages to be the same as they would be in the market.  But having multiple compensation packages would make the logistics and application of a JG program much more complicated.

To find the best wage rate for JG jobs, a few parameters should be considered. First, the JG framework is to create jobs that provide at least a minimum “subsistence” rate, so that workers can  live a decent life. As such, it is clear that the JG wage should at least be the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Second, the goal of the JG is not, and should never be, to replace the private sector. So, the JG wage should not exceed the average wage paid in the private sector ($25.31 in 2016). This creates an upper limit.  

With these lower and upper limits in place we can raise the floor or lower the ceiling, ultimately arriving at the proper wage rate paid by this full employment policy. Recent polls show that Democrats, Republicans and Independents—in their majority—all support raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, which suggests that there may be widespread political support to increasing the minimum wage.We can raise the lower limit further after we consider the per capita income in the US, which would put the fair minimum wage at $12.00 an hour. The lower limit of $12 an hour is appropriate since it is marginally above the poverty rate of $11.53 for a household with two children where only one of the parents is employed.

A good point within that range is the $15.00 hourly wage rate. Legislation regarding this wage rate has recently been approved in cities such as Seattle, Los Angeles, and the state of New York. There is also a movement by workers demanding that it becomes the floor in the fast food and retail industries. It seems appropriate, therefore, to follow these cities and movements by determining the going wage rate for a JG program to be set at $15.00 an hour. After all, a national JG cannot pay less than locally established minimum wages. On the other hand, the guarantee of a job in, for example, Seattle paying $15.00 per hour, while surrounding areas are offering lower pay could saturate one area in detriment of another.

As previously discussed, the JG wage would become the minimum wage to the entire economy. Consequently, workers who currently earn less than the $15.00 an hour rate would receive a raise. In total, accounting also for the ripple effects faced by workers in the $15.00 to $19.00 range, roughly 64.7 million workers would receive a wage increase, which means 43.5 percent of the labor force would see their wage income go up. To avoid inflationary pressures, allow for seamless implementation, and contain possible—albeit historically improbable—negative employment effects from the minimum wage hike, the transition to this wage through the implementation of the JG program will have to be done incrementally.

The Job Guarantee is an effective way to solve the three major problems currently facing the American labor market: the skill gap, the dropout of workers from the labor force, and most importantly the stagnant wages. We have empirically observed that wage increases not only do not increase unemployment, but they also serve as a catalyst for economic growth and towards social equity. The US economy has plenty of needs that can be fulfilled by giving well-paying jobs to its unemployed. The $15/hour wage is not only fair, it is a necessary measure to ensure the prosperity of this nation.

The Shortage of Money: A Fallacious Problem

Whether they are implemented in Latin America (1970-90s), in the UK (under Thatcher) or in Greece (since 2012), austerity measures are all justified by the fact that “there is not enough money.” People are told that “there is no alternative,” and that the state needs to implement structural adjustment programs—usually including across-the-board spending cuts—to restore investors’ confidence and to hope for a better future.

What if this shortage of money could be overcome? What if this problem was ultimately the wrong one? What if we could have money for everything we needed?

In her latest book, The Production of Money: how to break the power of Bankers, Ann Pettifor argues that:

  • YES the society can afford everything that it needs,
  • YES we are able to ensure enough money for education, healthcare, sustainable development and the well-being of our communities, 
  • YES we can discard money shortage, contrary to the human or physical (land and resources) ones.

However, one condition needs to be fulfilled: our monetary system should be well-regulated and managed.

To understand how and why, Ann Pettifor takes us back to basics. She starts by defining money as a “social construct based primarily and ultimately on trust”. One of the  reasons why we use money in the first place is because we know that others will accept it in the future; it is the means “not for which we use to exchange goods and services, but by which we undertake this exchange” (Law). Your 100-dollar bill would be worthless if others didn’t accept it. The value of money depends on the “acceptance” of money, i.e. on the trust you and others have in money.

Contrary to popular belief, 95% of (broad) money (i.e. cash and coins + bank deposits) is created by private banks and not by the central bank. When a bank makes a loan to a firm, it creates simultaneously a deposit account from which the firm withdraws the loan. Money is therefore created “out of thin air” when the account of the borrower is credited—i.e. when loans are made. This has two implications:

 

  1. When money is created, so is debt. This debt needs to be repaid. Ann Pettifor uses the example of a credit card  which allows you to purchase goods and services today. The spending (= purchasing power) on a credit card “is created out of thin air”. You will ultimately need to pay back the amount spent plus a pre-agreed interest rate. Money is therefore a promise of a future productive value.
  2. The money supply depends on private borrowers and their demand for loans. Central banks influence (but do not control) the money supply by increasing or decreasing the cost of borrowing with their policy interest rate. Money creation is therefore a bottom-up process rather than a top-down one.

Does this mean that we should create as much money as people want loans?  Of course not. According to Ann Pettifor, there are constraints that make unlimited borrowing impossible: inflation (and deflation). Indeed, if money is not channeled toward productive purposes, the claim associated to it might not be reimbursed. In other words, the promise of a future productive value might not be fulfilled. When there is too much money “chasing too few goods and services”, reflecting over-confidence in the economy, it results in inflation, eroding the value of assets (such as pensions). Similarly, when there is not enough borrowing (either because borrowers need to repay their debts, as it has been the case in Japan and the US right after the last recession, or because the cost of borrowing is effectively too high), reflecting distrust in the ability to repay debt, deflation steps in.

Therefore, as money can be created “out of thin air”, there is no reason to have a shortage of money as long as it is channeled towards productive purposes. An unlimited amount of money can be created for projects that will ultimately result in the production of value, which will allow the repayment of debt. However, the author does not define what “value” or “productive purposes” are, which in my opinion is the main drawback of the book.

Although Pettifor does give some hints by opposing “productive purposes” to “speculative” ones and by associating “value” to the notion of “income, employment and sustainability”, her approach is rather imprecise and in this sense disappointing. To her credit, defining value is a difficult task, especially if we want to define what is valuable to the society as a whole. Pinning down the definition of value is, in my opinion, ultimately a political debate. If one considers that democracies reflect “collective preferences”, it can be said that societies decide through elections on what is most valuable to them at a given point in time.

Unfortunately, the current monetary system does neither enable nor guarantee that money and credit are used for productive purposes. It is characterized by “easy” and “dear” money; the former refers to unregulated and easy access to borrowing, while the latter conveys the idea of expensive borrowing, i.e. with loans charged at high interest rate. The issue with this system is that (1) with unregulated borrowing, money will be used for unproductive purposes, (2) with high interests, debtors will meet difficulties reimbursing their loans. 

Such a system is harmful to society. In the words of Ann Pettifor:

“If rates of interest are too high, debtors have to raise the funds of debt repayment by increasing rates of profits, and by the further extraction of value. These pressures to increase income at exponential rates for the repayment of debt implies that both labor and the land (defined broadly) must be exploited at ever-rising rates. Those who labor by hand or brain work harder and longer to repay rising, real levels of mortgage or credit card debt. It is no accident therefore that the deregulation of finance led to the deregulation of working hours.”

A sound financial and monetary system would precisely have opposite features, with “tight but cheap credit” (Keynes), in which loans are regulated but cheap. “Tight credit” would ensure the soundness and creditworthiness of loans, while “cheap credit”, secures the affordability and thus the repayment of loans.  

Hence, Ann Pettifor makes a remarkable argument by providing an in-depth but accessible insight into the workings of the monetary system and the debates surrounding it. Both economists and non-economists should give it a read.

It is indeed quite astonishing that money, ever-present in our lives, is so poorly understood; even by many economic experts themselves. According to Ann Pettifor, this incomprehension stems from the deliberate efforts of the financial sector to “obscure its activities” in order to maintain its omnipotence. The Production of Money aims at addressing this “crisis of ignorance” by providing an intelligible and comprehensive overview of money in the hope of empowering people against finance’s grip over society.

By Céline Tcheng
Disclaimer: views are my own.

About the Author

Céline grew up between Paris, China and Singapore. After graduating in a Master’s degree in Economics and Public Policy,  she now works for a public policy institution in France. In her free time, she coordinates INET (Institute for New Economic Thinking) YSI (Young Scholars Initiative)’s Financial Stability Working Group and performs with her dance crew “Slash Art”. Her main interests are: macroprudential policy, financial stability, monetary policy. Follow her on Twitter: @celine_tcheng

Brazil May Be About to Give Up its Financial Sovereingty

These are strange times. For those who have been drowning in the craziness milk-shake that is the United States presidential campaign and have not been able to follow other world events (we do not blame you), it should come with some assurance to know that the rest of the world is not doing much better. Case and point is that the acting president of Brasil, Michel Temer, who came to power for being the VP of impeached president Dilma Rousseff, is trying to make Brazil the least financially autonomous nation in the world.

Temer and his cabinet, who have been working towards the implementation of austerity measures in Brazil since they came to power, have proposed a constitutional amendment that will severely limit Brazil’s flexibility in government spending. It would be the 93rd amendment to Brazil’s ‘young’ 1988 constitution. In short, the Constitutional Amendment Proposal 241* (PEC 241 in Portuguese), would create an artificial limit to government spending, which would become pegged to the previous year’s inflation.

The Brazilian economy is facing a dire recession even though the Bovespa stock index and real currency BRBY rank among the world’s best-performing assets this year. The pressure towards austerity is coming from both internal and external players, and the financial markets have rallied well to the prognostic of the amendment’s approval. Despite its failure to produce meaningfully positive results elsewhere, austerity is still seen positively by international financial markets.   

The amendment makes Brazilian fiscal policy hostage to inflation, thus inverting the hierarchy of economic policy in the country; instead of using of its taxes and spending to control inflation, inflation would control Brazilian economic policy. On one hand it makes the job of lawmakers and policymakers a lot easier, on another it takes away powers granted by the constitution to the Brazilian congress and it is, as put by Brazil’s Attorney General, unconstitutional.

brazil

The amendment has been approved by a special commission in Brazil’s lower house on the 6th, and four days later was approved by the lower house as a whole. It comes as a victory to Temer’s austere aspirations for austerity measures had been failing to be implemented in Brazil even during the final days of the previous government. Temer’s own efforts had been facing serious challenges until now.

It is not to say that it all good sailing weather for PRC 241. Portions of the public have come out against the measure. Notably, economists have argued that the debt problem in Brazil is caused by a fall in tax revenue and not because of overspending. Indeed, the high unemployment rates combined with high inflation – among other factors – have caused a real decline in revenue of 2.5%. Meanwhile small business owners in retail have experienced decreases of as high as 30% to their revenue streams.

For those versed in Functional Finance and Modern Monetary Theory this will seem as completely nonsensical. Brazil, currently, is a financially sovereign nation to a good extent. It prints its own currency and taxes on that currency. It, however, has emitted debt in foreign currency, namely the dollar. The amendment would limit this sovereignty, making the Brazilian economy work only within the limits set by the (interior and exterior) factors that affect inflation.

If you have followed our posts for a while, you have read some strong arguments on why austerity is not the remedy for countries facing as recession and that smart fiscal stimulus is much more likely to succeed.

*Some of the sources for this article are in Portuguese.

*This post was written by Carlos Maciel

The Job Guarantee: The Coolest Economic Policy You’ve Never Heard Of

When you think of economic issues what are the first things that come to mind? Poverty, inequality, unemployment, inflation, and crisis are all common answers to the question. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a policy that could address all of those issues (and more) in a cost-effective manner? In this piece I will give a very brief introduction to Job Guarantee (JG) schemes, the proverbial economic silver bullet.

Hyperboles aside, Job Guarantee proposals (which may come in many different names such as Employer of Last Resort, or Public Service Employment) are a remarkably good way to address many of the social economic problems current faced by populations all over the world. Ideas about JG programs date back to as early as the 1600s, they have been implemented in many nations during a variety of different stages of the business cycle – and usually to a great deal of success.

Simply put, JG is a direct public employment policy where all of those people who are willing and able to work are guaranteed a job given that these individuals meet some basic employability requirements. Most proponents of JG establish that these jobs should pay a basic, fixed, uniform wage plus full medical coverage and free child care (the latter can be provided by JG workers themselves). The goal of the program should be to ensure that all full-time JG workers are able to obtain a living standard that is above a reasonable poverty threshold. Thus, this sort of program go a long way in addressing poverty. Furthermore, it would also target another major economic problem, the stagnation of real wages and the currently low minimum wage granted to US workers. The JG wage would instantly become the minimum wage for the entire economy: workers in other sectors that are receiving less than the JG wage would be very compelled to take one of those guaranteed jobs, and employers would have to raise their salary offers in order to keep their workforce. Finally, the wages would also act as price anchor, which improves upon the stability of the economy.

The first question I usually get when telling someone about the Job Guarantee is “yeah but, how can we afford it?!” Questions about the deficit and national debt have been put to rest previously on this blog (see here), hence I shall focus on other questions regarding its affordability. For starters, it has been shown elsewhere that JG is remarkably cheaper and more effective than other proposals, such as Basic Income and Negative Income Tax, in achieving lower poverty and unemployment rates (see here, and in many pieces by Rutger’s Phillip Harvey). Secondly, the newly employed JG workers would bring in savings in many different ways: they would get out of unemployment insurance, food-stamps, and other such programs; they will pay income tax, medicare and social security tax, as well as more consumption related taxes; and the government would spend less on issues that are related to poverty, such as higher crime rates. In addition, employment multipliers would make it so the JG program would not have to employ the entire unemployed population. The extra consumption and production related to the JG will create indirect and induced jobs which will represent a significant portion of the job creation from the program. Finally, yours truly is among a number of economists who have modeled the implementation of a a JG for the US and found that eliminating unemployment at a living wage would cost just around 1% of the American GDP.

At this point many say something like “but employing everyone while raising the minimum wage has to be inflationary!” the answer to which is a simple “nope”. First, we have to bear in mind that in the current system the economy’s most precious resource – workers – is being wasted in unemployment, while under a JG program it will be put to use. Orthodox economic thought claims that millions of people need to be unemployed in order to contain inflation, that it is financially “sound” to a tenth of the population in idleness for an unknown period of time. It comes from the idea that the economy is always operating at full capacity, which then brings the inflation problem to being a matter of equilibrating the demand and supply forces of the economy. Both of these assertions are, to quote Keynes, “crazily improbable – the sort of thing that which no man could believe had not his head fuddled with nonsense for years and years.” Government expenditure is as inflationary as any other sector expenditure. Unemployed workers are spending in consumption either way, being sustained by welfare or, dangerously, by credit – and there’s nothing financially “sound” about that.

A JG program would in fact control for inflation by proving a minimum wage anchor for prices and by increasing the productive capacity of the economy through its projects. It would take off the pressure put on demand from the unemployed by increasing supply of goods and services by incorporating those idle workers in the productive structure. Furthermore, even if we assume it to be inflationary it would be a “one-time” increase in inflation, and not an accelerating type one, meaning that demand (and inflation) wouldn’t rise above the full employment level.

In that sense, the costs associated with a JG program (increasing budget deficit and inflation) are not more than ideological myths that obscure the true social costs of unemployment and poverty and curtails any innovative attempts to deal with them. Indeed, generating aggregate demand, employment and inflation is all what the US economy has tried to do since the 2008 financial crisis, but through the wrong ways. A JG program would be extremely more efficient and less costly than QE or negative interest rates. As the world crumbles in economic and political instability, guaranteeing jobs would surely deal with most of its problems. It is up to governments to load and shoot that silver bullet. I don’t think there’s a more appropriate time than now.

Written by Carlos Maciel & Vitor Mello
Illustrations by Heske van Doornen