1/2/2014: WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics

This is WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences and zero economics. Enjoy!

Richard Mosse is on show at RHA in Dublin - an even that is an absolute 'must-see': http://www.rhagallery.ie/exhibitions/theenclave/ I covered Mosse's work earlier in relation to his fantastic show at Biennale earlier in 2013 (http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/07/2772013-wlasze-part-1-weekend-links-on.html) and had a distinct pleasure attending the RHA exhibition launch. RHA presentation of his photographs and a separate film-based installation are superb and do proper justice to the tremendously important artist. The exhibition also contains one large photograph that was not on show in Venice.

@RHAgallery

And while at RHA, do not (not that there is any fear you would) miss their superb mini-retrospective of Micheal Farrell - an exhibition spanning the career of one of Ireland’s most accomplished artists, showing both his search across styles and narratives over the years and the emergence of his unique, personal voice. For myself, not all too knowledgeable about Irish artists of the period, this was an eyeopening exhibition.

Now onto more international scene...

My penchant for Science Meets Art themes is being well-catered for by Adam Summers photography that combines use of dyes and fish to reveal the natural beauty of skeletal structure: symmetry, complexity and patterns:
http://www.designboom.com/art/adam-summers-dyes-fish-specimens-to-reveal-their-anatomy-12-19-2013/

When nature meets the power of contrast and the two meet the human eye, values, semiotics, interplays of colour and light and geometry of proximate symmetry - all come into play.

On the opposite side of the same clustering of art and science, the contrast is amplified through superficial tech:
SOICHIRO MIHARA won 17th Japan Media Arts Festival award, here is his collaborative project from 2011, Moids 2.1.3 - acoustic emergence structure: http://www.samtidskunst.dk/simpleinteractions/projects/soichiro-mihara-hiroko-mugibayashi-kazuki-saita/

The installation combines 1024 autonomously functioning units that record the sounds of their proximate surrounding, and combine a micro-cprocessor that analyzes the recorded sound. The sound is recorded based on the programmed limits which trigger both the start and end of the recording for a specific unit, plus the triggering algorithm for chain reactions.

Big controversy in NY: after pretty lengthy period of speculations and debates, MoMA announced recently that "after an "exhaustive" analysis of the different options (razing the former Museum of Folk Art on 53rd Street, saving the distinctive facade, or saving the building), the museum had reluctantly decided (feel free to roll your eyes here) to demolish the Tod Williams & Billie Tsien-designed structure to make way for a museum expansion and, not at all coincidentally, an 82-story residential tower developed by Gerald Hines and designed by Jean Nouvel."
http://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/January-2014/Done-Deal-MoMA-To-Raze-Folk-Art-Museum/
Here are some images of the museum building:

Sadly, I must add… sadly. The Folk Moma is a brilliant design, architecturally challenging and powerful, breaking up the monotonously 'Manhattanite' space… All to be replaced by what amounts to a spiced-up version of corporatism…

To pure art: Kristian Rothstein an interesting developing artist worth following for abstract art fans: http://kristian-rothstein.com/Weis-1

Still raw and searching, and mostly borrowing from Gerhard Richter, Rothstein is one to watch as he draws on some nicely intuitive, organic sensitivity in his use of colour.


Talking about sensitivity, while swinging a massive u-turn from art to science, here is a story from physics: the far-reaching idea for a Death Star-styled laser that can focus particles into a massive space telescope:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/01/giant-laser-could-arrange-particles-into-enormous-space-telescope/
Description via arstechnica is brilliant: "let me present the trifecta of awesomeness: a seemingly ridiculous idea, one that works in a bizarre manner that has little to do with the justification given by the scientists, and—to really make matters special—it involves lasers in space." The rest of this article is mind-boggling and can pass as a good teaser for one of those "Mind-Training" programmes that simultaneously burns vast amounts of calories and flexes your brain… rend and enjoy…


Last week I tweeted about the shortlisting of the Dublin-based Heneghan Peng practice for designing Contemporary Arts Center in Moscow. Here's the link:
http://www.architecturefoundation.ie/news-item/heneghan-peng-on-moscow-museum-shortlist/
Pardon the comparative, but it evokes the imagery of the "Deep Thought" from the Hitchhikers Guide… despite the fact that the "Deep Thought" really was figurative, non-abstract non-geometric structure more resemblant of Henry Moore's sculptures… Or may be it mreminds me of a stack of old-fashioned disk drives for extinct computers… or an old stereo equipment 'tower'? ok, ok, I am stretching things here… But, of course, Moscow is no stranger to geometric juxtaposing in its own architectural heritage… and I like it... I can't quite decide why...


The "Deep Thought" was of course a computer that was created to come up with the Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. And everything is a big theme for physics nowadays. Good thing that recently they got a glimpse of a piece of this 'everything'. Per BusinessInsider: "For the first time, astronomers were able to see a string of hot gas known as a filament that is thought to be part of the mysterious underlying structure that dictates the layout of all the stars and galaxies in our universe. Scientists believe that matter in the universe is arranged into a gigantic web-like structure. This is called the cosmic web." Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/first-image-of-cosmic-web-2014-1#ixzz2s5048t46

The whole thing relates to the eXtreme Deep Field view of the Universe, which is covered in all its glory here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/xdf.html

Do note that none of this disputes that the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is, as found by the Depp Thought, 42. Nor does it provide any insight into Deep Thought's last conjecture that "…the problem, to be quite honest with you is that you've never actually known what the question was". But it is fascinating, nonetheless. 

1/2/2014: US GDP growth Q4 2013

US Q4 GDP numbers posted a surprisingly strong performance, with third quarter in the row coming at above the 2009-2013 average rates:

Source: Pictet

At the top level, GDP posted 3.2% q/q expansion and annual (y/y) growth accelerated from 1.3% to 2.0% to 2.7% between Q1 and Q4 2013.

The quality of growth also improved. In Q2-Q3 2013, personal consumption grew 1.8% and 2.0% respectively (annualised), with Q4 2013 growth registering 3.3%. Private final demand grew 4.0% in Q4 2013, against 3.4% and 2.8% in Q2 and Q3. Bad news came only on private residential investment side, where activity declined massive 9.8% having posted  14.2% and 10.3% expansions in Q2 and Q3.

Government spending fell 4.9% in Q4 2013, compared to decline of 0.4% in Q2 2013 and growth of 0.4% in Q3 2013.

Excluding Government spending, GDP grew 5.2% in Q4 2013, beating 5.0% growth in Q3 2013 and 3.2% growth in Q2 2013.

31/1/2014: January Credit Supply Conditions: Germany

Credit supply survey from Germany shows slight tightening in credit conditions, but continues to trend at the levels consistent with historically low credit constraints:

No surprise then that German policymakers are not to phased about the issues of credit supply... 

31/1/2014: Economics Teaching in Ireland

A very interesting research via @stephenkinsella and @brianmlucey on what is going on in Irish economics: teaching and research-wise... http://brianmlucey.wordpress.com/2014/01/31/what-do-irish-economists-think-and-teach/

Caveat - low response rate to the survey can be taken as a warning to conclusions, but also a reminder of just how detached Irish economics profession might be.

Basic conclusions: economics is a stand-alone science which should not be polluted by applications to the 'real world' which is highly imperfect, but does correspond rather well to orthodox economic models. If only the Government gave more money to economics researchers, the world can be made a better place, despite the fact that very few researchers seem to teach in the areas in which they research... Oh, and final point: leave us (economists) alone, you pesky little people...

28/1/2014: Decline in Debt and Regaining of Trust?

The following out this morning:

So is Herr Schaeuble correct? Did reductions of debt help 'regain trust during the crisis'? Were there actual reduction in debt?

Table summarises 2007-2013 maximum debt levels (for General Government Debt as % of GDP) attained by the euro area economies and the year when this maximum was attained:

Three observations:

1. With exception of two countries: Germany and Portugal, 2013 debt to GDP ratios are maximal for the entire period 2007-2013.
2. In the case of Germany, peak debt level attained in 2010 was 82.44% of GDP, while in 2013 estimated level of debt/GDP is expected to be 80.393% of GDP. The reduction is small. Meanwhile, German bund yields are not reflective of any specific reduction - they were low in 2009 and 2010 and they are low now.
3. Portugal's peak debt/GDP ratio is notionally at 2012 at 123.8% of GDP. Country 2013 expected debt/GDP ratio is 123.56%, which is statistically indifferent from 2012 levels, so we cannot call this material by any measure.

Here's evolution of debts over the period in two charts, confirming that there has been no reduction in debt levels relative to the earlier stages of the Global Financial Crisis:

And here is the chart showing how dramatic were the increases in debt levels over the course of the crisis:

But, of course, virtually the entire euro area bond yields have shown improvements in 2012-2013, which is really totally and completely divorced from the debt dynamics:

The IMF is not even projecting decline in debt until 2015...

27/1/2014: Two Reforms, One Conclusion

Two headlines about EU policymaking, one conclusion:

EU audit reform reduced to 'paper tiger' : http://euobserver.com/economic/122815 in which the EU 'reforms' of the rules for financial audits are shown as a 'paper tiger', "unable to break up the dominant position of the world's four biggest audit firms."

EU bonus cap to have little impact on bank pay : http://euobserver.com/economic/122852 in which Fitch explains why "EU's new bank bonus rules are unlikely to have much effect on executive pay".

And the one conclusion is: for fake reforms with no teeth, tune into the EU policymaking post-crisis…

24/1/2014: The Fragile Five: Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, India and Indonesia

ECR wades in with a weekly analysis of the declining ratings across the Tier 3 countries: the Fragile Five: Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, India and Indonesia: here.

A chart and a table to summarise:

23/1/2014: League Table of VC Funding, 2012

Remember that report from the WallStreet Journal that put Ireland at the top of the European league tables in terms of Venture Capital raised?  Reminder: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/12/5122013-entrepreneurship-culture-and.html

But here's the latest evidence on the same:

So we are not too low in the tables... although this still does not strip out state subsidies and MNCs funding...

23/1/2014: A Troubled Recovery: Sunday Times, January 12

This is an unedited version of my Sunday Times column from January 12, 2014.


To some extent, the forward-looking data on the Irish economy coming out in recent months resemble the brilliant compositions of Richard Mosse – Ireland's leading artist at the venerable La Biennale di Venezia, 2013 (http://www.richardmosse.com/works/the-enclave/). Mosse show in Venice comprised sweeping photographic landscapes of war-affected Eastern Kongo rendered in crimson and pink hues of hope.

In our case, the rose-tinted hues of improving recent data are colouring in hope over the adversity of the Great Recession, now 6 years in the running. Beneath it all, however, the debt crisis is still running unabated.


This week, Purchasing Manager Indices (PMIs), published by Markit and Investec, signaled a booming Q4 2013 economy. Services PMIs averaged 59.7 over the last quarter of 2013, well above the zero-growth mark of 50. Alas, the Services PMI readings have been showing expansion in every quarter since Q1 2010, just as economy was going through a recession. The latest Manufacturing PMIs averaged 53.6 over the Q4 2013, implying two consecutive quarters of growth in the sector. Sadly, manufacturing activity, as reported by CSO was down substantially year on year through October. Things might have improved since then, but we will have to wait to see the actual evidence of this. Past history, however, suggests this is unlikely: PMIs posted nine months of growth in the sector over the twelve months through October 2013, CSO's indicator of actual activity in the sector printed seven monthly declines. Rosy forward outlook of PMIs is overlaying a rather bleak reality.

But the story of fabled economic growth is not limited to the PMIs alone. Property markets were up in 2013, boosted, allegedly, by the over-exuberance of international and domestic investors, and by the penned up demand from the cash-rich, jobs-holding homebuyers. No one is quite capable of explaining where these cash riches are coming from. Based on deposits figures, Irish property buyers are not taking much of cash out of the banks to fund purchases of South Dublin homes. They might be digging money out of the fields or chasing the proverbial leprechauns’ riches or doing something else in order to pump billions into the property markets. Still, residential property prices are up year on year. Alas, all of these gains are due to Dublin alone: in the capital, residential real estate prices rose 14.5 percent over the last 12 months. In the rest of the country they fell 0.5 percent.

Fuelled by rising rents (up 7.6 percent year on year) and property prices, the construction sector also swelled with the stories of a rebound. Not a week goes by without a report about some investment fund 'taking a bet on Ireland's recovery' by betting long on real estate loans or buildings, or buying into development land banks. Thus, Building and Construction sector activity in Q3 2013 has reached the levels of output comparable with those last seen in Q4 2010. Not that it was a year marked by robust activity either, but growth is growth, right? Not exactly. Stripping out Civil Engineering, building and construction activity in Ireland is currently lingering at the levels compatible with those seen in H2 2011. Worse, Residential Building activity was down year-on-year in Q3 2013. Meanwhile, in line with other PMI indicators, Construction PMI, published by Markit and Ulster Bank, suggests that the sector has been booming from September 2013 on. Again, more data is required to confirm this, but CSO's records for planning permissions show declines in activity across the sector.

The truth is that no matter how desperately we seek a confirmation of growth, the recovery to-date is removed from the real economy we inhabit. As the Q3 2013 national accounts amply illustrated, the domestic economy is still slipping. In the nine months of 2013, personal consumption of goods and services fell EUR734 million in real (inflation-adjusted) terms, while gross domestic capital formation (a proxy for investment) declined EUR381 million. Thus, final domestic demand - the amount spent in the domestic economy on purchases of current and capital goods and services - fell EUR1.3 billion or 1.4 percent. In Q2 2013 Irish Final Domestic Demand figure dipped below EUR30 billion mark for the first time since the comparable records began back in Q1 2008, while Q3 2013 reading was the third lowest Q3 on record.

Beyond Q3, the latest retail sales data for November 2013, released this week, was also poor. Even stripping out the motor trades, core retail sales were basically flat on 2012 levels in both volume and value.


With domestic economy de facto stagnant and under a constant risk of renewed decline, Ireland remains in the grip of the classic debt deflation crisis or a balancesheet recession.

The usual canary in the mine of such a crisis is credit supply. Per latest data from the Central Bank, volumes of loans outstanding in the private economy continued to fall through November 2013. Average levels of credit extended to households fell almost 4 percent in Q4 2013 compared to 2012 levels. Loans to non-financial corporations fell some 5 percent over the same period.

Total private sector deposits are up marginally y/y for Q4 2013, but household deposits are down. Thus, recent improvements in the health of Irish banks are down to retained profits and tax buffers being retained by the corporates. Put differently, the canary is still down, motionless at the bottom of the cage.

In this environment, last thing Ireland needs is re-acceleration in business and household costs inflation. Yet this acceleration is now an ongoing threat. Courtesy of the 'hidden' Budget 2014 measures Irish taxpayers and consumers are facing an increases in taxes and state charges of some EUR2,000 per household. Health insurance, water supplies, transport, energy, and a host of other price increases will hit the economy hard.

And after the Minister for Finance takes his share, the banks will be coming for more. The cost of credit in Ireland has been rising even prior to the banks levies passed in Budget 2014. In 3 months through October 2013, interest rates for new and existing loans to households and non-financial corporations were up on average some 19-23 basis points. Deposits rates were down 71 bps. Based on ECB latest statistics, the rate of credit cost inflation in Ireland is now running at up to ten times the euro area average.

In other words, we are bailing in savers and investors, while squeezing consumers and taxpayers.


These trends largely confirm the main argument advanced in the IMF research paper, authored by Karmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff and published last December. The paper argues that in response to the global debt crisis, the massive wave of financial repression is now rising across advanced economies. The authors warn that economic growth alone may not be enough to deflate the debt pile accumulated by the Governments in the advanced economies prior to and during the current crisis. Instead, a number of economies, including are facing higher long-term inflation in the future, and lower savings and investment. The menu of traditional measures associated with dealing with the debt crises in the past, covering both advanced and developing economies experiences, includes also less benign policies, such as capital controls, direct deposits bail-ins, as well as higher taxes and charges.

Ireland is a good example of the above responses. Since 2011 we have witnessed pension funds levies and increases in savings and investment taxes. We also have witnessed state-controlled and taxed sectors pushing prices ever higher to increase the rate of Government revenue extraction. Budget 2014 banks levy is another example. Given the current state of banking services in Ireland, the entire burden of the levy is going to fall onto the shoulders of ordinary borrowers and depositors. Insurance sector was bailed-in, primarily via massive increases in the cost of health cover and reduced tax deductibility of health-related spending.

As Reinhart and Rogoff note, historically, debt crises tend to be associated with a significantly lower growth and are marked by long-run painful adjustments. The average debt crisis in the advanced economies since the WWII lasted 23 years – much longer than the fabled ‘lost decade’ on reads about in the Irish media.

All of which goes to the heart of the today’s growth dilemma in Ireland: while macroeconomic performance is improving, tangible growth anchored in domestic economy is still lacking. The good news i: foreign investors rarely look at the realities on the ground, beyond the macroeconomic headlines. The bad news is: majority us live in these realities.

Box-out: 

This column's mailbox greeted the arrival of 2014 with a litany of sales pitches from various funds managers. All were weighing heavily on ‘hard’ performance metrics, with boastful claims about 1- and 5-year returns. While appearing to be ‘hard’, these quotes present a misleading picture of the actual funds’ performance. The reason for this is simple: end of 2008 – beginning of 2009 represented a bottom of the markets collapse.

Over the last 10 years, annual returns to the S&P500 index averaged roughly 5 percent. This is less than one third of the 15.5 percent annualised returns for the index over the last 5 years. In Irish case, the comparatives are even more striking. Five-year annualised rise in ISEQ runs at around 12 percent. Meanwhile 10-year returns are negative at 1.2 percent.

Since no one likes quoting losses, the industry is only happy to see the dark days of the early 2009 falling into-line with the 5 year metric benchmark: the lower the depth of the depression past, the better the numbers look today.

The problem is that even the ten-year returns figures are often bogus. The quotes, based on index performance, usually ignore the fact that the very composition of the markets has changed significantly during the crisis. This is especially pronounced in the case of ISEQ. In recent years, ISE witnessed massive exits of larger companies from its listings. Destruction of banking and construction sector in Ireland compounded this trend. Put simply, investors should be we weary of the industry penchant for putting forward five-year returns quotes: too often, there's more wishful marketing in these numbers than reality.

23/1/2014: The Age of Great Stagnation: Village Magazine, January 2014

This is an unedited version of my column in Village magazine for December 2013-January 2014.


With employment rising, property prices on the mend, mortgages arrears stabilising, Exchequer returns surging and business and consumer confidence regaining pre-crisis highs, one can easily confuse Ireland for an Asia-Pacific economic dynamo.

Alas, the reality of our economic predicament suggests that once the official hullabaloo about the return to growth is stripped back to the bare facts, it becomes clear that Ireland is entering a new age, the Age of Great Stagnation.

The reasons for this are two-fold.

Firstly, we are still facing a long-term debt crisis. No matter what statistic one pulls out of the hat, this crisis, embodied in high levels of debts carried by our households, non-financial companies and the Exchequer, is going to be with us for many years to come.

Secondly, we are still in a structural growth crisis. Neither our own development model, heavily reliant on FDI and transfer pricing by the multinationals, nor our core trading partners growth models, reliant on fiscal and financial repression to drag themselves out of the crisis, are sustainable in the long run.


In our leaders’ dogmatic adherence to the past (a behavioural  fallacy that economists call path-dependency) our official growth theory suggests that economic recovery in our major trading partners will trickle down to Irish national accounts.

Alas, in the longer run, a lot is amiss with this thinking.

For starters, exports-led theory of growth is simply not true. Over 2000-2013, Ireland led the euro area in growth and in a recession. Since the onset of the crisis, cumulative real GDP across the euro area contracted by 2.1 percent. In Ireland, over the same period, GDP fell by 4.7 percent as domestic drivers for the crisis overpowered external factors. As for the recovery period, unlike in the early 1990s, the improving economic fortunes abroad are not doing much good for Ireland’s exports to-date. Over the last four years, volumes of imports of goods by the euro area countries grew by almost 15 percent. Irish exports of goods over the same period of time rose just 2.2 percent.

The reason for this is structural. Tax arbitrage only works as long as there are profits to move through the Irish tax system. Once the profits dry out, arbitrage ends. Pharma sector is a good example of this dynamic. Replacing goods exports-driven growth with ICT services-driven trade is decoupling our external balances from the real economy.

Worse, much of our trade balance improvements in 2009-2013 was down to collapse in imports. This presents a serious risk forward. To fund our public and private liabilities, we need long-term current account surpluses to average above 4 percent of GDP over the next decade or so. We also need economic growth of some 3-3.5 percent in GDP and GNP. Yet, to drive real growth in the economy we need domestic investment and demand uplifts. These require an increase in imports of real capital and consumption goods. Should our exports of goods continue down the current trajectory, any sustained improvement in the domestic economy will be associated with higher imports. A corollary to that will be deterioration in our trade balance. This, in turn, will put pressures on our economy’s capacity to fund debt.

And given the levels of debt we carry, the tipping point is not that far off the radar. In H1 2013 Ireland's external real debt (excluding monetary authorities, banks and FDI) stood at almost USD1.32 trillion - the highest level ever recorded. Large share of this debt is down to the MNCs. However, overall debt levels in the Irish system are still sky high. At the end of H1 2013, total real economic debt in Ireland - debt of Irish Government, excluding Nama, Irish-resident corporates and households - stood at over EUR492 billion - down just EUR8.5 billion on absolute peak attained in H3 2012.

Which brings us to the second point raised in the beginning of the article: our economic, regulatory, monetary and political dependency on the euro area.

Instead of charting own course toward sustainable long-term competitiveness, we remain attached at the hip to the euro area. The latter is now seized by a Japanese-styled long-term stagnation with no growth in new investment and consumption, and glacially moving deleveraging of its own banks and sovereigns. Financial, regulatory and fiscal repressions are now dominating the euro area agendas.

All of the trade growth across the euro area today comes from the emerging and middle-income economies outside the euro block. And competition for this trade is heating up. Even Portugal, Greece and Spain, not to mention Italy are posting positive trade surpluses and these are projected to strengthen in 2014.

Meanwhile, we remain on a slow path to entering new markets, despite having spent good part of the last 6 years talking about the need to 'break' into BRICS and the emerging and middle-income economies. In Q1-Q3 2012, Irish exports of goods to BRICS totalled EUR2.78 billion. A year later, these are down EUR240 million.

We are also missing the most crucial element of the growth puzzle: structural reforms.

Since 2008 there has been virtually no change in the way we do business domestically, especially when it comes to protected professions and state-controlled sectors. Legal reforms, restructuring of semi-state companies’ and the sectors where they play dominant roles, such as health, transport and energy, reductions in the costs and inefficiencies in our financial services – these are just a handful of areas where promised reforms have not been delivered.
Instead of reducing the burden of monopolistic competition in key domestic sectors, we are increasing it. In banking, oligopoly of three domestic players is being reinforced by exits of international banks and lack of new entrants into the market.

In line with the lack of transformative changes in state-controlled sectors, there is little innovation in the ways the Government approaches fiscal policies. Taxes and charges are climbing up, while spending continues to run ahead of pre-crisis trends. On a cumulative basis, over 2008-2013, Irish Government spending above 1997-2007 trend stands at around EUR79 billion. This trend is based on a generous assumption for annual growth of government spending of 6 percent from 1997-1999 on. Over the last sixteen years, average annual growth in our nominal Gross National Product run at under 6.07 percent per annum. Growth in Government spending over the same period stands at 7.22 percent and for current expenditure – at 7.46 percent.

Meanwhile, costs are rising across all categories of regulations, from taxation to professional compliance, to operational aspects of enterprise. Not surprisingly, Ireland is experiencing falling entrepreneurship. According to the World Bank data, in 2004-2008, Ireland's average density of start-ups was 6.1 allowing for an average of 17,500 new companies to be formed per annum. In 2012 the density fell to 4.5 and the number of new companies registered slipped to 13,774.  This does not account for numerous re-openings of the businesses liquidated over the recent years to resolve the back-breaking tolls of upward-only rent reviews.

The political cycle is now turning against the prospect of deep reforms with European and local elections on the horizon.  With it, any prospect of real, structural change in the economy is fading away. The current technical recovery in the economy is likely to push Irish growth to above the euro area average rates in 2014. Beyond then, there is little visibility as to what can sustain such a momentum. In short, enjoy this late sunshine, while it lasts.

23/1/2014: Insatiable Innovation - IBM's View on End-of-Growth Hypothesis

For some months now I've been meaning to post on the topic of the IBM's recent report on global development in Innovation markets, titled "Insatiable Innovation: From sporadic to systemic".

The paper is a sizeable response to the popular theory gaining ground that the world is past innovation capacity peak. I covered this topic on this blog (see for example http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2012/08/2882012-challenging-constant-growth.html).

IBM folks, obviously disagree: "Is innovation dead? Numerous press reports seem to indicate so. A view is emerging that innovation is no longer the driver of growth it once was, as evidenced by a January 2013 cover article in The Economist. Pundits point to declining growth in global productivity as further proof that “The Big Idea” is a thing of the past (e.g., global per capita GDP 10-year CAGR, which topped 4 percent in the 1950s, fell to nearly 0.5 percent by 20102)."

A note of caution is worth putting forward here, IBM authors do not do literature analysis. This makes their paper weaker. They could have benefited from directly challenging the evidence and analysis presented in the likes of Gordon's work on the topic, rather than dismissively waving arms at it.

But what IBM authors do do is solid review of their own experience coming from the real economy and own IBV studies:

"Our view, based on analysis of past IBM Global CEO studies, as well as practical, hands-on experience, is that innovation is far from dead. It is, instead, thriving among those outperforming companies that apply product, operational and business model innovation to truly differentiate themselves from their competition. The ability to generate, control and exploit innovation can become a major source of strategic advantage and economic benefit, as demonstrated by the growth in value of those companies deemed “most innovative"."

This is not the evidence that can undermine the core thesis put forward by Gordon, but rather an argument that incremental innovation is alive and well.

Interestingly, the evidence presented by the paper seems to reflect well on the thesis of slowdown in revolutionary innovation and the diminishing returns to innovation. At the top level, here's what IBM are saying: "Innovation has been constantly evolving in its complexity and impact. Beginning with the industrial revolution in the Nineteenth Century and continuing through one technological milestone after another, economic activity has become more global, opening up new markets, new businesses and new business models (see Figure below). These models have evolved to the extent that, in today’s age of “universal customization,” customers are empowered to affect product attributes in real-time, with products and services becoming hypercustomized to meet the needs of individual customers."

Wait, but this is exactly what the thesis of diminishing returns to innovation is about. As returns are reduced, complexity (and associated costs) rise. The chart above, perhaps inadvertently, but nonetheless correctly, shows that acceleration in economic returns to technology from the current plateau can only happen if/when we move to Universal Customisation. This is fine, except we are not yet there. Thus IBM top-level view that innovation is about to raise the gear of productivity growth is reliant on assuming that what we envision already occurred. It has not. Hypercustomised has not yet met any of the needs of individual consumers and we have no idea when it will do so.


"Growing complexity has intensified competition, providing an ever-greater impetus for:

• Product innovation that has broadened the competitive playing field. Products today increasingly face non-traditional competitors.
• Operations innovation that has generated efficiencies and decreased cost for organizations and customers. Many organizations, for instance, now source production from specialists.
• Business model innovation that motivates creation of sophisticated ecosystems of products, services and experiences. Emerging technologies are fundamentally changing business and scale economics."

Let me discuss couple of points, not subtracting from the graph, but rather adding to the picture of complexity in innovation it attempts to capture.

While at the first stage of Mass Industrialization, production lines started to replace farmers and artisans and new industries fueled economic growth, in more individualised world, empowered by what IBM terms "Mass (robotic)automation", Miniaturization and subsequently Universal Customization do not only lead to the increased functionality within a reduced size, improved speeds and performance and computerisation, but also to re-introduction of atomistic / artisan producers back into demand chain.

The reasons for this are two-fold:

1. With advanced production technologies, execution of production becomes secondary to innovation and design. Speed to market becomes key differentiator of successful innovations from failed. Here, larger systems, including corporate systems, can be and will be successfully challenged by smaller producers;
2. As demand becomes more individualised and more atomistic, satisfying this demand will involve more atomistic products and designs. Here, artisans can deliver significant value added to the market.

Universal Customisation, thus, is a stage where artisans, atomistic designers, consumers-producers evolve to regain markets from corporate, vertical structures of command and control.

Which means that the only way the system does not dissolve into entropy is by assuring that Global Connectedness stage delivers seamless access to the markets. In other words, Global Connectedness will require not only revolution of data flows (Internet), but revolution in logistics.

Or put differently, unless there are some yet-to-be-mapped breakthroughs in a number of areas, the age of Big Innovation is eclipsing. Gordon's thesis still stands...

23/1/2014: Remember that 'upbeat' IMF Growth Outlook?..

A quick note on the IMF update to the World Economic Outlook, released earlier this week. Here are some charts showing core forecasts progressions for growth and other global economy's performance metrics, with brief comments from myself.

The core point in the below is where does one exactly find the 'good news' relating to the IMF upgrading growth conditions expectations? The answer is that, contrary to media reports, the upgrades evaporate when once compares January 2013 forecasts against January 2014 ones, although there are some improvements in comparative for October 2013 against January 2014 forecasts. Materially, however, the upgrades are minor.

First for Advanced Economies:

The above chart shows evolution of real GDP growth for 2013 from the most recent forecast (January 2013) to the latest estimate (January 2014). The notable feature of this is the deterioration in underlying economic conditions over 2013, with forecast from January 2013 overestimating expected outrun for Global Economy growth and for all major advanced economies, save Spain, Japan and the UK. In case of Spain, forecast and outrun differ in terms of shallower expected decline in real GDP now expected for Spanish economy, compared to January 2013 forecast. In the case of Japan and the UK, the difference in higher estimated growth rates compared to forecast.

Moving on to 2014 forecasts for real GDP growth:

Much has been said in the media on foot of the IMF upgrade of its forecasts for global growth for 2014. This analysis is solely based on the comparing IMF outlook published in October 2013 against the forecast published this month. However, looking at January 2013 forecast against January 2014 forecast shows that the IMF outlook for the global economy has deteriorated since a year ago, from 2014 real GDP growth forecast of 4.1% to 3.7%. The same applies to all major advanced economies, save Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK.

Another important note here is that in the case of Italy and Germany, the difference between January 2013 and January 2014 forecasts is well within the margin of error. And that for the Advanced Economies as a whole, the forecast between two dates has not moved at all.

Thus, overall, the news analysis of 'greater optimism' from the IMF with respect to growth is really unwarranted - there is very little significant change to the upside in the IMF latest outlook.

Things are a little better for 2015 outlook:

However, we only have two points for comparing these forecasts: October 2013 and January 2014, so the above analysis (12 months span between forecasts) is not really available. Nonetheless, there is a significant marking up of global growth expectations between two forecast dates (from 2.9% to 3.9%), and  small downgrade in Advanced Economies growth forecast from 2.5% to 2.3%.

In addition, only Spain and the UK received a significant (statistically) growth upgrade, with the Euro area, Germany and Italy upgrades being within the margin of error.

The matters are actually far worse for the Emerging and Developing economies. 2014 forecasts are shown below:

With exception of Sub-Saharan Africa, all other major emerging and developing economies and regions have been downgraded in January 2014 forecast compared to January 2013 forecast.

When it comes to 2015 forecasts: there are more upgrades to growth forecasts:

But none - save for Developing Asia, China and MENA - are within statistically meaningful range.

The really devastating - the thesis of 'improved IMF outlook' - evidence comes from looking at the IMF forecast for Global Growth (controlling for FX rates):

Summary of the above chart is simple and ugly:

• Lower growth estimates for 2013
• Lower growth forecast in 2014, compared to the forecast published a year ago
• Lower growth forecast in 2015

And now, recall the 'salvation by trade' argument for Europe and Ireland? The 'exports-led recovery' story? Here are IMF latest forecasts for global trade volumes growth, and for imports by the advanced economies (AE) and emerging and developing markets (EM & developing):

Summary of the above chart is also simple and ugly:

• Lower trade growth in 2014 and 2015
• Lower imports growth in Advanced Economies in 2014 and 2015
• Lower imports growth in EMs in 2014 and 2015

So basic question is: Who will be buying all the exports that are supposed to grow across all European states?.. Martians?