Why Sen is right about what is being done to Greece

At first sight the negotiations between Greece and the Troika seem to be simply a battle about resources: how much of the pie that is Greek national income their creditors should receive. There have been many similar types of battle over the years - what makes this one unusual is that the creditors have a unique weapon on their side. With primary surplus approximately achieved, Greece’s bargaining position would normally be extremely strong. The Eurozone creditors would be desperate to salvage what they could from their foolish decision to effectively buy some privately owned Greek government debt. The only reason the Troika is able to call the shots is that it can threaten to eject Greece from the Eurozone. [1]

Part of the deliberate mystification that goes on here is to present Eurozone exit as if it somehow automatically follows if there is a Greek default. But of course Greece has already defaulted, and it remains in the Eurozone. Greece wants to remain in the Eurozone. What will stop them if they do default will be a run on their banks, and a refusal of the lender of last resort for their banks - the ECB - to act in that capacity. Again this will be presented by the ECB as inevitable given the ECB’s own rules. But as Karl Whelan points out, the ECB in reality has considerable discretion, and it has been using that discretion in its role as part of the Troika.

Still, even if the sides are a little unequal in their power, is it still just a battle over resources? One side advocates left wing/populist/humanitarian policies and the other side policies that are more of the consensus/neoliberal/tough variety. [2] One side has suffered a massive fall in GDP partly as a result of previously agreements, while the other is negotiating over what is to them peanuts. So there is plenty of opportunity to pick sides based on preferences. Both sides would almost certainly be better off with an agreement, so it also makes sense for people to appeal for flexibility, which is why I signed this letter.

But to pick sides, or to call for flexibility from both, misses the main point. Yes, this is a battle over resources, but it is a battle where one side is using its power to pursue a policy that is very short-sighted, involving incredible hubris, and which is ultimately self defeating. The Troika are not acting in the long term interests of those they represent. This is I believe what Amartya Sen was saying when he compared these negotiations to the Versailles agreement. 

The most obvious example of this are the Troika’s continuing demands for positive primary surpluses and the austerity measures required to achieve them. This is just stupid. It continues to waste large amounts of valuable resources, as well as inflicting real suffering. It certainly is not in the interests of Greece, but it is almost certainly not in the interests of the creditors either. If you shrink the pie, you are less likely to get the amount of pie you have a claim to. (Martin Sandbu goes through the maths here.) It is disgraceful that key parts of the IMF plays along (or worse) with this. In the past I have described how heterogeneous the IMF is, but taking absolutely no notice of what your own research department says about austerity is crazy. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard talks about the Fund's own credibility and long-term survival being at stake. Keynes, who helped found the organisation, would be turning in his grave.

What about all the reforms that the Troika is insisting on? It is tempting to look at each in turn, and apply our economics expertise to come to an evaluation. If a reform demanded by the Troika might tend to increase the long run pie, then perhaps they are right to insist on it. This neglects one small issue: democracy. The Greek people have elected a government with a mandate. The Troika appear to be acting as if this is neither here nor there, and that is deeply worrying, at least to those of us who are very weary of yet further economic and political integration. (For those who have that integration as their ultimate goal, Greece can be seen as an annoying obstacle that should be thrown aside. [3])  

The hubris of the Troika is incredible. They have convinced themselves that they must override the democratic wishes of the Greek people because the Troika have the wisdom about what is good for the Greek economy. This is the same body that with its superior wisdom prevented full default, and imposed ridiculously strong austerity on Greece and crashed the economy as a direct result. To cover up these errors they play to stories in the media about the lazy and privileged Greek people, stories that largely disintegrate when confronted with evidence. Now they shrug their shoulders and say I have to keep on the same disastrous path because my electorate gives me no choice!

Amartya Sen is right. This is our Versailles treaty moment. It could be so very different. No doubt some of Syriza’s mandate may be unwise, but their own economists may recognise that and welcome the excuse to shelve them. The Troika and Syriza’s negotiating team could be cooperating in that endeavour, but I’m pretty sure that is not what is happening. On austerity the priority of the Troika should be to eliminate the Greek output gap, which means in the short term less rather than more austerity. This would not just be in the interest of the Greek people but also the interests of the rest of the Eurozone.

[1] This is why I think these negotiations are less like bargaining over a mutually beneficial exchange (rolling over lending in exchange for reforms), and more like a discussion with a mugger over which of your personal possessions you hand over.

[2] Or add any other description you prefer - my point is that they differ and people have strong views about them both in principle and practice, and therefore pick sides accordingly.

[3, postscript] Karl Whelan shows here that Giavazzi’s piece is as grounded in facts as some other FT op-eds. 

The academic consensus on the impact of austerity

In discussing the forthcoming UK budget, Robert Peston writes:

“And before I am savaged (as I always am) by the Krugman crew of Keynesian economists for even allowing George Osborne's argument an airing, I am not saying that the net negative impact on our national income and living standards of cutting the deficit faster is less than their alternative route of slower so-called fiscal consolidation.

I am simply pointing out that there is a debate here (though Krugman, Wren-Lewis and Portes are utterly persuaded they've won this match - and take the somewhat patronising view that voters who think differently are ignorant sheep led astray by a malign or blinkered media).”

I do not want to disappoint, and as I was about to write something on the macroeconomic consensus on austerity anyway, let me oblige - not in savaging (I leave that to my American colleague in arms!), but in justifying why I think there is such a consensus in the places that count. By consensus I do not mean that everyone agrees - of course not - but that a very large majority do, which probably counts as consensus in economics.

Unfortunately we do not have a great deal of information on what academic economists as a whole think about austerity, but we do have two important survey results which are pretty conclusive. In the US, there is the IFM Forum, which regularly asks a group of distinguished economists - including many macroeconomists - their views on key policy issues. The last poll I have seen suggests that 82% of that panel thought the 2009 Obama stimulus had reduced unemployment, while only 2% disagreed. In the UK, the CFM survey asked a similar question to a smaller group of academic economists, most of whom are macroeconomists. Only 15% agreed that the austerity policies of the coalition government have had a positive effect on aggregate economic activity, while 66% disagreed. That consensus is not universal - it would not apply in Germany for example - but I doubt if anyone would disagree when I say that US economists call the shots as far as academic macroeconomics is concerned. 

This is why economists the world over continue to teach Keynesian macro to undergraduates, and normally not as one ‘school of thought’ but rather as an initial approximation of how the economy actually works. As Amartya Sen so forcefully reminds us, the experience of the last hundred years has earned Keynesian theory this central role.

However we have another, more indirect, source of evidence. If you asked whether there was a standard model for analysing the business cycle among economists in academia and in policy making institutions, the answer would have to be the New Keynesian model. I want to include economists in central banks in particular because they have to put theories of the business cycle into practice on a regular basis. The key macromodels that central banks use to forecast and to analyse policy are Keynesian, and many are New Keynesian. Having worked a great deal with New Keynesian models myself, I also know what they imply about temporary changes in government spending in a liquidity trap (see this paper by Mike Woodford, for example). It may be possible to adapt these models to give you expansionary austerity, but no such adaptations command general or even partial support.

The models used by pretty well all central banks would therefore imply that temporary cuts in government spending were contractionary, absent any monetary policy offset. The governors of the central banks of the UK and US say this publicly. European central bank governors do not tend to say this, and instead continue to advocate austerity despite deflation. The reason why they might do this despite what their models tell them will be the subject of a later post, but I suspect it has little to do with conventional macroeconomics (but see also the point about German academic views above, and Sen’s article). If temporary cuts in government spending are contractionary in a liquidity trap, it follows that it is much better to delay this form of austerity.

I could add repeated arguments from economists at the IMF (e.g. here and most recently here), and now also the OECD (FT here, or ungated here). Of course there are some academic economists who continue to argue that the impact of austerity is expansionary or at least minor - I suspect there always will be, as long as this remains an intense political debate. They would be joined by many City economists, but they are neither unbiased nor the source of any particular expertise on this issue.

This is why, among economists with expertise, there is a clear majority view that fiscal austerity is significantly contractionary in a liquidity trap. That does not automatically mean that the 2010 policy switch was wrong, or that it had a big impact on the UK in 2010-2012: there are additional issues here which I have discussed many times. How damaging to the macroeconomy any additional austerity from Osborne will be also depends on whether we are or will be in a liquidity trap. But the fact that we might well be means that additional austerity now is a big mistake, and on this I believe the great majority of academic macroeconomists and those macroeconomists working in policy making institutions would agree.

As far as the media is concerned, I cannot believe that Robert Peston would disagree that a large section are ‘malign’, given how political this issue is. When I have talked to journalists who have some freedom to report the facts rather than what their editors want them to report, the argument I most often hear is that because this issue is political, they have to report it as a ‘debate’ come what may. I have never had the pleasure of talking to Robert Peston (he is welcome to email at any time), and I would be very interested in how he would respond to the evidence I have laid out. As for the public, the word sheep is his not mine. Would he really argue that the public are independently well informed on these matters, or unaffected by the media’s presentation of this and similar issues? Which is why I will continue to - as he might say - bang on about this, even though my audience is tiny in comparison to most journalists.