17/5/2014: Growth Forecasts: What Matters and What Doesn't

This is an unedited version of my Sunday Times article from April 20, 2014.



Nothing sums up frustrations of the policymakers and general public with economics as well as the famous quote from the US President, Harry S. Truman: “Give me a one-handed economist, all my economists say is ‘on the one hand …and on the other hand…”

Quips aside, human choices and activities - the fundamental forces driving all economics - are unpredictable and painfully complex to model and measure. But beyond behavioural intricacies, complex nature of modern economic systems implies that data we use in analysis is often rendered non-representative of the realities on the ground.

Take for example the concept of the national income. Economists define this as a sum of personal expenditure on consumer goods and services, net expenditure by Government on current goods and services, domestic fixed capital formation, changes in stocks and net exports of goods and services. Combined these form Gross Domestic Product or GDP. Adding Net Factor Income from the Rest of the World (profits and dividends flowing from foreign destinations into Ireland, less payments of similar outflows from Ireland) gives us Gross National Product or GNP.



All of this seems rather straightforward when it comes to an average country analysis. By and large the overall changes GDP and GNP are closely linked to other economic performance indicators, such as inflation, investment, employment and household incomes.

Alas, this is not the case for a tiny number of small open economies with significant share of international activities in their total output, such as Ireland. In such economies, both GDP and GNP can be severely skewed by tax optimisation and global rent-seeking strategies of multinational enterprises. Faced with large share of domestic accounts distorted by tax arbitrage, economists are left to deal with high degrees of uncertainty when forecasting national output and employment. Even past data becomes hard to interpret.

In recent months, various analysts published a wide range of forecasts and predictions for Irish economy for 2014-2015. Consider just three sources of such forecasts: Department of Finance, the ESRI and the IMF.

Budget 2014 projections, forming the basis of our fiscal policy predicted average annual real GDP growth of 2.15 percent, with underlying real GNP growth of 1.7 percent. These projections were based on the assumed annual growth of 1.5 percent in personal consumption, and 6.35 percent growth in investment. These projections were also in-line with IMF forecasts.

Around the same time, ESRI was forecasting GDP growth of 2.6 percent for 2014 and GNP growth of 2.7 percent, well ahead of the Department of Finance outlook. ESRI forecasts were much more skewed in favour of domestic investment and personal consumption.

Fast-forward six months to today. In its latest analysis, IMF lowered its forecast for our GDP growth to 1.7 percent for 2014, leaving unchanged their outlook for 2015. The Fund forecast for GNP growth remained unchanged for 2014 and was raised for 2015.

ESRI has shifted decidedly into even more optimistic territory. The Institute's latest predictions are for GDP expansion of 3.05 percent on average in 2014-2015. GNP growth forecast is now at 3.6 percent. ESRI's rosy projections are based on expectations of a massive 10 percent growth in investment, with private consumption expectations also ahead of previous projections.

Finally, this week, Department of Finance upgraded its own forecasts, lifting expected 2014-2015 growth to 2.4 percent for GDP and 2.5 percent for GNP. Domestic demand growth is now expected to average 2.4 percent through 2015, and investment growth is expected to run at a head-spinning rate of 13.9 percent.

Everyone, save the IMF, is getting increasingly bullish on Irish domestic economy, which, in return, spells good news for employment and household finances.



The problem is that all of these forecasts give little comfort to anyone seriously concerned with the impact of economic growth on the ground, in the real economy.

Even the ESRI now admits that we cannot forecast this economy with any degree of precision. More significantly, the Institute recognises that our GDP figures are no longer meaningful when it comes to measuring actual economic performance. Instead, the ESRI claims that GNP is a better gauge of the real state of the Irish economy.

In truth, the proverbial rabbit hole does not end there: Irish GNP itself is still heavily skewed by the very same distortions that render our GDP nearly useless.

The ongoing changes in our exports and imports composition are throwing thick fog of obscurity over our net exports, which account for 22.6 percent of our GDP and 26.7 percent of our GNP – not a small share.

Since 2012, expiration of international patents in the pharmaceutical sector, triggered billions in lost exports revenues and shrinking trade surplus. In colloquial terms, Irish economy is now running weak on expired Viagra.

Just how much the patent cliff depresses our GDP and GNP is a mater of dispute, but we do know that pharma accounts for about one quarter of our total exports and one eighth of the gross value added in economy despite employing very few workers here. The patent cliff was responsible for a massive 1.25 percent drop in our labour productivity across the entire economy last year. But, as ESRI analysis previously shown, the overall effect of patents expirations on our GDP (and by corollary on GNP) is extremely sensitive to the assumptions relating to where pharma companies book their final profits. Profits booked in Ireland yield significant adverse impact. Profits channeled through Ireland to offshore destinations have negligible impact.



Which brings us to the second force contributing to rendering both GDP and GNP growth largely irrelevant as measures of our economic wellbeing.

Based on data through Q4 2013, since the bottom of the Great Recession in 2010, our net exports of goods and services rose EUR10.6 billion, driven by EUR14.4 billion in new exports of services offset by the decline of EUR3.05 billion in exports of goods. Ireland’s exports-led recovery was associated with a massive shift toward ICT exports.

Much of this trade was associated with little real activity on the ground.

Consider for example tax revenues. In 2010-2013, for each euro in added net exports, the Exchequer revenues increased by less than 3.3 cents. Back in 2000-2002 period the same relationship was more than six times higher. Of course back then both the MNCs and domestic companies were in rude health or on steroids of cheap credit and patents protection, depending on how a two-handed economist might look at the numbers. Still, the core composition of our exports was more directly connected to real production and value creation taking place in this country.

This can be directly witnessed by looking at other metrics of current activity, such as Purchasing Manager Indices published by Markit and Investec Ireland. Since Q1 2010, both Services and Manufacturing PMIs have been consistently signaling a booming economy. Meanwhile, GDP posted an average annual rate of growth of just 0.22 percent. Employment in industry ex-construction is down 21 percent on pre-crisis peak, employment in professional, scientific and technical activities is down 4.3 percent and employment in information and communication sector is down 1.1 percent.

The new crop of multinational corporations driving growth of GDP and GNP in Ireland is much more aggressive at tax optimisation than their predecessors. Which means that they also tend to use fewer domestic resources to deliver real value added on the ground.



All of which suggests that gauging true extent of economic growth in Ireland is no longer a simple matter of looking at either GDP or GNP figures. Instead, we are left with other aggregate measures of the real economy, such as: non-agricultural employment and the final domestic demand – a sum of private and public consumption and gross fixed capital formation.

By the latter metric, this economy has managed to deliver 6 consecutive years of uninterrupted annual declines in activity. In 2013, inflation-adjusted domestic demand fell by some EUR366 million on previous year. Cumulated losses since 2008 now stand at EUR32 billion or almost 20 percent of our GDP. Good news is that the rate of declines has been de-accelerating every year since 2009. And in H2 2013 demand rose 1.75 percent year on year. Bad news is that in real terms, our final domestic demand is currently running at the levels just above those recorded in 2003. In other words, we are now into the eleventh year of the ‘lost decade’.  At H2 2013 rate of growth, it will take Ireland until 2026-2027 to regain pre-crisis levels of domestic economic activity.

Meanwhile, employment figures are painting a slightly more optimistic picture, albeit these figures too are not free of methodological problems. In Q4 2013, non-agricultural employment in Ireland stood at 1,793,000, with H2 figures on average up 1.91 percent or 33,550 on the same period of 2012. To-date, non-agricultural employment numbers are down 13 percent or 266,550 on pre-crisis levels. However, when one considers total population changes in Ireland since the onset of the crisis, the ratio of non-agricultural employment to total population is currently at 39 percent, which is the level below those recorded in Q4 2000.


To the chagrin of the Irish policymakers and general public, our economy is, like an average economist, two-handed. On the one hand, our employment and total demand figures show an economy anemically bouncing close to the bottom. On the other hand, a handful of MNCs are pushing our GDP and GNP stats up with profits from their operations in far flung places retired here. Harry Truman really had it easy compared to Enda Kenny.

Box-out

The latest data from the Central Bank covering retail interest rates confirms two key trends previously highlighted in this column.

The first one is the rising cost of borrowing compared to the underlying European Central Bank policy rate. In January-February 2014, average retail rates on new loans for house purchases were priced 3.32 percent higher than the ECB rate. A year ago the same margin was 2.89 percent. For non-financial corporations, average margin rose from 4.58 percent to 5.03 percent for loans under EUR1 million, and from 2.42 percent to 3.1 percent for new loans over EUR1 million. Lending margins over the ECB rate in January-February 2014, averaged two to three times the margins charged in the same period of 2007 at the peak of credit bubble.

The second trend relates to the spread between rates paid by the banks on deposits and interest charged on loans. Since October 2011, Irish households consistently faced deposit rates that are by some 2 percentage points lower than the average annual cost of new loans for house purchases. In January-February 2014 this gap widened by some 0.27 percent compared to the same period of 2013. The spread is now running at double the rate recorded at the peak of the pre-crisis credit boom. The same holds for interest rates differential between loans and deposits for non-financial corporations which is now at the second largest levels since January 2003 when the data reporting started.

In short, credit today is historically more expensive, while deposits are cheaper. Irish banking sector continues to extract emergency rents out of the real economy with no easing in sight.

16/5/2013: Euro Area 'Austerity' in One Chart

Frankly, folks, there is nothing like making a factual argument across emotive subject lines... I have put up two posts on Euro area 'austerity' - here and here - and the readers want more numbers, usually in hope of finding a hole in my arguments.

Here is, perhaps a better, summary of the Euro area Austerity in its own numbers - in levels of nominal expenditure and revenues:

I hope this settles the issue:

1. Euro area austerity has meant revenues collected by the governments are up
2. Euro area austerity has meant that Government spending is up

Tell me if this is a 'savage cuts' story or a 'tax burden rising' story...

12/5/2013: Much austerity? Not really... & not of the kind we needed

A week ago I published a blogpost exploring IMF data on austerity in Europe, based on a sample of 20 EU countries with advanced levels of economic development (excluding Luxembourg). You can read that post here. The broad conclusions of that post were:

1. There is basically no austerity in Europe, traceable to either changes in deficits, changes in Government spending or changes in debt. If anything, the European fiscal policies can be characterised by a varying degree of fiscal expansionism during the current crisis, relative to the pre-crisis 2003-2007 period.
2. This, of course, does not account for transfers between one set of expenditures (e.g. public investment reductions) and other lines of spending (e.g. banking sector measures).
3. The only area of fiscal policy where austerity is evident is on taxation burden side, which rose in the majority of sampled economies.

The numbers got me worried and in this post I am looking solely on deficits side of Government spending. If there is savage austerity in EU27, so savage it is killing European economies, surely it would show up in General Government deficit numbers. As before all data reported is based on averages and comparatives computed by me from IMF's WEO data as reported in April 2013 edition of the database.

Let's take a closer look.

Only 2 countries out of 20 have recorded a reduction in average deficits during the crisis period (2008-2012) compared to the pre-crisis average (2003-2007). These were Germany, where annual average deficits declined by 0.95 percentage points (pretty significant) and Malta, where annual average deficits fell 0.79 percentage points (also pretty sizeable drop).

On average, EU20 sample annual deficits have increased by a massive 3.44 percentage points over the pre-crisis period. In  non-Euro area states, the average increase was 3.16 percentage points. But in 'savagely austerian' Euro area, the increases averaged 3.51 percentage points.

So far, the Euro area analysts' rhetoric opposing austerity has been focused on 2012 as the year of highest - to-date - cuts. Was this so? Not really:

Again, as above, there is scantly any evidence of deficit reductions, and plenty of evidence that deficits are getting worse and worse. Again, the comparative is not to the absurd levels of spending during peak spending years of the crisis, but to pre-crisis averages. After all, stimulus is not measured by an ever-escalating public spending, but by increase in spending during the recession compared to pre-recession.

The same conclusion can be reached if we look at 2007 deficit compared to 2012 deficit.

In other words, folks, Europe has had, so far, only 3 measurable forms of austerity, none comfortable to the arguments we keep hearing from European Left:

1. Tax increases (remember, we want to soak the rich even more, right?)
2. Revenue re-allocations to banks measures (remember, no one on Europe's official Left has come out with a proposition that banks should not be bailed out) and to social welfare (clearly, the Left would have liked to spend even more on this)
3. Germany

Note: we must recognise the simple fact that social welfare spending will rise in a recession for a good reason. The argument here is not that it should not (that's a different matter for different debate), but that when it does increase, the resulting increase is a form of Government consumption stimulus.

So let's make the following argument: Euro area did not experience 'austerity' in any pure form in the reductions in deficits. Instead, it experienced a 'stimulus' that was simply wasted on programmes and policies that had nothing to do with growth stimulus (e.g. banks supports). Here are two charts to illustrate:

What the charts above clearly show is that Euro area can be divided into three types of member states:

• Type 1: states where cumulated 5 year surpluses over pre-crisis period gave way to cumulated 5 year deficits. These are: Estonia, Finland, Spain and Ireland.
• Type 2: states where cumulated 5 year deficits over the pre-crisis period were replaced by more benign deficits over the crisis period period. These are Germany and Malta.
• Type 3: all other euro area states where cumulated 5 year deficits over pre-crisis period were replaced by even deeper cumulated deficits over the 5 years of the crisis.

The only two types of fiscal policy that Euro area is missing in its entirety is the type where pre-crisis deficits gave way to crisis period cumulated surpluses (no state in the sample delivers on this) and the type where pre-crisis surpluses gave way to shallower crisis-period surpluses (only one European state - Sweden - qualifies here).

Oh, and one last bit relating to the chart above: all of the peripheral countries, save Italy, had a massive increase in deficits on cumulated basis during the crisis compared to pre-crisis period. Apparently this is the savage austerity that has been haunting their economies.


Updated:
An interesting issue raised by one of the readers:

And my response:

2/5/2013: Austerity... savagely over-hyped?..

It was May 1 yesterday and in celebration of that great socialist holiday, "In Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and France tens of thousands of people took to the streets to demand jobs and an end to years of belt-tightening".

Except, no one really asked them what did the mean by 'belt-tightening'. Some, correctly, meant by the term the concept of transfers from taxpayers (usually via higher taxes, rather than spending cuts) to the broken banks, but majority, undoubtedly, we decrying cuts in Government spending. You see, damned austerity is just that (or supposed to be just that): cuts in the levels of expenditure. These can mean reduction in absolute level of spending, or a reduction in spending as a proportion of GDP.

And, you see, not much of that is going on in Europe nowdays, despite all the fierce rhetoric about savage cuts.

Ok, let's do some exercises, using IMF data.

First, consider tax revenues:

In the chart above, I marked with darker columns countries where tax revenues as % of GDP have declined during the current crisis (more precisely, taking average tax revenues fior 2003-2007 pre-crisis boom days and comparing against 2012 outrun). Guess what?

• In % of GDP terms, savage austerity meant that Government revenues have declined by less than 1 percentage point in Cyprus (-0.89 ppt), Czech Republic (-0.64 ppt) and Portugal (-0.08 ppt), the revenues have fallen by between 1 and 2 percentage points in Ireland (-1.26 ppt) and the UK (-1.68 ppt) and have declined by more than 2 percentage points in Denmark (-2.50 ppt), Spain (-3.28 ppt) and Sweden (-3.15 ppt).
• All in, only 8 out of the 20 EU countries considered above (these are all advanced economies of the EU, excluding Luxembourg, where data is so dodgy, no meaningful analysis can be made) have managed to post any declines in Government revenues relative to GDP. All other countries have posted increases. Overall, sample average Government revenues as % of GDP stood at 43.04% in 2003-207 period and this has risen to 43.84% in 2012.
• Now, onto levels of revenues. The sample of countries shown above had combined annual Government revenues of EUR7,791.61 billion in 2003-2007 on average. In 2012 this number stood at a 17.96% premium or EUR9,190.96 billion.
• Of all 20 countries considered, only one - Ireland - had experienced level reduction in Government revenues, which dropped from an annual average of EUR57.896 billion in 2003-2007 period to EUR55.42 billion in 2012.
• As I said above, there is only one meaningful form of austerity in Europe today: austerity of higher tax burdens on people.

Now, let's check out expenditure side of Europe's 'savage austerity' story:

Again, chart above highlights in darker color countries where Government expenditure had declined in 2012 compared to 2003-2007 pre-crisis average in % of GDP terms. The picture hardly shows much of any 'savage cuts' anywhere in sight:

• Of the three countries that experienced reductions in Government spending as % of GDP compared to the pre-crisis period, Germany posted a decline of 1.26 percentage points (from 46.261% of GDP average for 2003-2007 period to 45.005% for 2012), Malta posted a reduction of just 0.349 ppt and Sweden posted a reduction of 1.37 ppt.
• No peripheral country - where protestes are the loudest - or France et al have posted a reduction. In France, Government spending rose 3.44 ppt on pre-crisis level as % of GDP, in Greece by 4.76 ppt, in Ireland by 7.74 ppt, in Italy by 2.773 ppt, in Portugal by 0.562 ppt, and in Spain by 8.0 ppt.
• Average Government spending in the sample in the pre-crisis period run at 44.36% of GDP and in 2012 this number was 48.05% of GDP. In other words: it went up, not down.
• In level terms, things are even uglier for the 'anti-austerians'. Total (for this sample of countries) Government annual spending averaged EUR8,002 billion in 2003-2004 period and this rose to EUR9,941 billion in 2012 a rise in Government spending of whooping 24.2%.
• In level terms, not a single country in the sample of 20 advanced EU economies posted a decline in Government spending from the pre-crisis period to 2012. All posted increases in overall spending ranging between 88% for Estonia, to 7.76% for Portugal. Of all peripheral countries, not one cut a single cent on 2003-20007 average spending levels, with Cyprus hiking spending by whooping 39.8% in 2012 compared to 2003-2007 averages, France delivering a massive increase of 24.9%, Greece raising it modestly by 8.73%, Ireland by a massive 22.01%, Italy by a relatively benign 14.67%, Portugal by the sample lowest rate of 7.76% and Spain by a jaw-dropping 38.67%.
• All in, there is no 'savage austerity' in spending levels or as % of GDP.

So what is going on, folks? May be we can find austerity in deficits? Afterall, Paul Krugman & Co are telling us that we need to run deficits in the economy during recessions and this is the leitmotif to all of the anti-austerian policies proposals?

Savage austerity thesis must find at least a significantly large number of countries where there is no deficit financing going on during the crisis compared to pre-crisis activity, or at least a very large number of countries where deficits have declined compared to pre-crisis activity. Is that the case?

Sorry to say it, folks, errr... No. That is not the case.

• Only three countries in the entire sample of 20 have posted decreases in Government deficits in level and as 5 of GDP terms.
• In level terms, deficits declined in Germany, Italy and Malta. They rose in all other countries. Overall level of deficits in 20 countries analysed rose from EUR40.07 billion in 2003-2007 (annual averages) to EUR127.79 billion in 2012. In other words, during 'savage austerity' deficits tripled, not shrunk.
• In terms of relative weight to GDP, deficits also declined only in three countries - the same three countries as above. 
• Savage austerity meant that deficits increased in all peripheral states save Italy and that across 20 economies, whereas average deficit stood at -1.315% of GDP in 2003-2007 period, that rose to -4.215% of GDP in 2012.

 

As I said above, there are really two reasons for protesting in Europe today against what can very loosely be termed 'austerity':

1. As taxpayers we should protest against higher taxes & charges levied against us by the States to pay for various banks rescue measures and for continued public spending inefficiencies and private sector subsidies (note: I am not saying that all public sector spending is inefficient, I am alleging that some of it remains inefficient today); and
2. As taxpayers and residents we should protest about misallocation of scarce resources (including some public spending) from necessities (e.g. social welfare and unemployment protection, health, education, etc) to rescuing insolvent banks and corporate cronies.

Aside from the above reasons, please spare yourselves the blind belief in various Social Partners-produced spin about 'savage cuts'. All they care for is to increase even more state spending on their pet projects.