Author Archives: Edward Hugh

About Edward Hugh

Edward 'the bonobo is a Catalan economist of British extraction. After being born, brought-up and educated in the United Kingdom, Edward subsequently settled in Barcelona where he has now lived for over 15 years. As a consequence Edward considers himself to be "Catalan by adoption". He has also to some extent been "adopted by Catalonia", since throughout the current economic crisis he has been a constant voice on TV, radio and in the press arguing in favor of the need for some kind of internal devaluation if Spain wants to stay inside the Euro. By inclination he is a macro economist, but his obsession with trying to understand the economic impact of demographic changes has often taken him far from home, off and away from the more tranquil and placid pastures of the dismal science, into the bracken and thicket of demography, anthropology, biology, sociology and systems theory. All of which has lead him to ask himself whether Thomas Wolfe was not in fact right when he asserted that the fact of the matter is "you can never go home again".

A Crisis is Born in Italy

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Well as almost everyone must surely know by now, Romano Prodi’s government resigned earlier in the week. The present situation is still far from clear, with President Giorgio Napolitano holding urgent consultations with the various interested parties even as I write. Since my interest in Italy is largely an economic one (see accompanying post to follow this) and since I do not consider myself to be any sort of expert on the Italian political process, I asked Manuel Alvarez Rivera (who runs the Election Resources on the Internet site) and who is a political scientist with detailed knowledge of Italian politics for an opinion. Below the fold you can find what he sent me.

At the same time anyone inside or outside of Italy with a different take or perspective please feel free to add something in the comments section.
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Eurozone Economy: When Paradigms Collide

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When scientific paradigms collide everyone should duck, at least that is the best advice I can offer at the present moment. The provisional German retail sales for January are now in, and they don’t make especially pleasant reading:

“European retail sales dropped for the first time in 10 months in January as spending in Germany slumped, adding to signs economic growth is slowing, the Bloomberg purchasing managers index showed…..German retail sales had the biggest drop in two-and-a-half years, with its index declining to 43.9 from 55.2 in December”

Now for those who have been following the German economy in recent months none of this should be particularly surprising, since as is reasonably well known Angela Merkel’s government has just upped VAT from 16% to 19% in an attempt to address the ongoing federal deficit problems. And of course, one months data never offer a complete picture. But this decline in retail consumption in Germany forms part of a much longer ongoing weakness in domestic consumption (and here), one which many were arguing had finally come to an end in 2006. Some of us, however, seriously doubted that this was the case, and hence the initial significance of today’s reading. In particular what we may be faced with are changing structural characteristics of economies as median population ages rise. In particular – and following the well-known life cycle pattern of saving and consumption – more elderly economies may have a higher rate of saving and a lower rate of consumption increase than their younger counterparts.

Some more evidence to back this point of view comes from Japan, where today we learn that household spending in December declined for a 12th straight month, dropping 1.9 percent from a year ago. Yet the Japanese economy is not in recession, and output is actually rising. As Bloomberg say:

Japan’s factory production rose to a record and household spending fell, underscoring the central bank’s concern that growth has bypassed consumers and left the economy dependent on exports.

So please note: growth appears to have by-passed consumers, and the economy is ever more dependent on exports. The same goes for Germany, and this is why I talk about paradigm collision, since the neo-classical theory of economic growth – with its core conception of ‘steady state’ growth – was never built to handle median age related changes in economic performance and structural characteristics. Something new is clearly needed.

Over the coming weeks I will undoubtedly have more to say about all this, as we get to see more of the 2007 Eurozone data, but for now let me point you in the direction of Claus Vistesen, who has been patiently toiling away trying to work through a hypothesis which, in terms of the data we are now seeing, certainly seems more in keeping with current economic realities than the view we currently see emanating from the ECB. His arguments on Japan can be found in depth here, and his latest piece on the eurozone is reproduced below the fold.
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Kosovo: Divided We Stand, United We Fall?

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This is the title of a post from Seb Bytyci on his South East Europe Online blog. I reproduce the entire post below the fold.

So the UN seems set to adopt a plan which would allow Kosovo to make a giant step on the road to independence. This is hardly surprising, and frankly I see no other realistic way forward. But obviously not everyone is happy. And some of those who seem not to be happy have considerable ability to make mischief, and not the least among these, the Putin regime in Moscow.

Doug Muir and I have been blogging this week about the Serbian elections (here and here) and perhaps the biggest issue which arises from those elections is just which way Kostunica will fall. A lot depends on this decision, and this UN proposal, coming at precisely this time, may well serve to give him a sharp push in the wrong direction. Call it the law of the inopportune moment. Offering a share of power to the Radicals would constitute a major problem for Serbia, and in the medium term for the whole EU. But rising nationalist feelings, especially when they come on the back of desperation, are often hard to contain.

I would say that the biggest strategic danger is that the Serbs allow themselves to become a proxy for the ambitions, and mischief-making abilities, of Russian nationalism in the region.

This week a lot of people are gathered in Davos, and on the agenda somewhere is the topic of demography. Amongst those participating is demographer Nicholas Eberstadt who has repeatedly drawn our attention to the real and present danger constituted by a Russia which, on the back of low birth rates and reduced life expectancy, faces imminent demographic meltdown.

Only this week the Eastern Europe correspondent at The Economist Edward Lucas had this to say (in the Economist latest Europe.View column.

‘Forget, for a moment, the headline stories from central and eastern Europe―the pipeline politics, the corruption scandals, the treasonous tycoons. The big story in the ex-communist world is people. Too few are being born. Too many are dying. And tens of millions have changed country.’

This is the new reality of Eastern Europe, and it is one we would do well not to lose from sight, for if we do we may find ourselves getting bogged down in the detail of things whilst missing the big picture which is unfolding before our very eyes. (Claus Vistesen has an in-depth review of the world bank report to which Edward Lucas refers here).

Seb is reasonably optimistic, and understandably so given all that the Kosovars have gone through, but we should never forget the darker side of things, which lies out there in wait of us, if it can catch us unawares. In the context of what is happening right now in Russia and Serbia I would say that vigilance was the watchword.
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Serbia: That Incredible Shrinking Country

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This weekend’s election results in Serbia, and in particular the gridlock state of the political process and the resilience of the vote for the nationalist Serbian Radical Party (as ably explained by Doug in the previous post), pose new, and arguably reasonably urgent questions for all those who are concerned about the future of those European countries who currently find themselves locked outside the frontiers of the European Union. What follows below the fold is a cross-post of an entry I put up earlier this afternoon on the new global economy blog: Global Economy Matters. I don’t normally like cross-posting, since I would prefer to put up original Afoe content, but my time is a bit pressed at the moment, and I feel the issues raised are important enough to merit a separate airing on this site.
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La Febbre

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A couple of weeks back I had the pleasure of seeing Alessandro D’Alatri’s recent film La Febbre (Fever). As the reviewer says (Italian link), this is a ‘normal’ (everyday) film, not a great one, even if it does include one or two memorable moments, like the scenes shot along the river bank, which were (and I imagine this is not entirely unintentional) rather reminiscent of some which are to be found in the unforgettable L’Albero Degli Zoccoli from that giant of Italian cinema Ermanno Olmi.

“La Febbre è il classico film italiano, che vuol raccontare una storia normale, di tutti i giorni, e che per farlo non trascende dai canoni della buona creanza del plot, e da quel pizzico di amara critica sociale che lo rende molto politically correct.”

(La Febbre (the fever) is a typical Italian film, the kind of film which tries to tell a simple, ‘normal’ story – an everyday one – and which in order to do this stays well within the bounds of what is normally thought to be an acceptable plot structure, and then, following the recipe, there is added just enough social criticism to make the film a highly politically correct one.)

My point of interest in this post, however, is not really the film itself, but rather the film as a reflection of something else: the disenchantment and frustration that many young Italians seem to feel with contemporary Italian society, and the impact that the evident failure of Italian civil society to adjust to Italy’s contemporary social and demographic reality may have on the future evolution of Italian economy and society.
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Italy 2007 Budget Storm

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Italian Finance Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa is going to be a man of his word (and not follow in the path of that other European political leader who was lying about his budget in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night). He assures us of this:

Mr Padoa-Schioppa was adamant any adjustments to the budget, which MPs must approve, would not affect its goal of cutting Italy’s budget deficit to 2.8 per cent.

This is an important re-affirmation, since this time yesterday this little detail wasn’t clear at all, as there was a small matter of 5 billion euro of cuts which were in the budget but which effectively didn’t exist. (All of this is explained in a post on the Italian Economy Watch blog, and the follow up here, as well as by Claus Vistesen on his blog).

As the Economist said:

This is not the sort of thing you expect of a former board member of the European Central Bank. But it shows how far Mr Padoa-Schioppa has had to bend to placate demands by left-wing parties within the government.

The uproar produced within the small business community – who would have seen this mony simply transferred from their coffers to those of the state – has meant that Prodi has now had to publicly vow that the budget will be changed, always of course sticking to the three principles which underlie the budget policy of the current Italian government, namely:

“It’s clear that we will make technical corrections and adjustments, but we absolutely won’t renounce the three objectives of fairness, restoring the health of the public finances and development,”

So, Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, even though this isn’t exactly the sort of thing that you expect from an ex-director of the ECB, we will assume that this time you are serious, and that you will try to comply with the spirit of what your government has agreed with the European Commission, even if, realistically, it may be a very difficult objective to achieve in the global economic environment we may all face in 2007.

Andy Xie, India and China

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Andy Xie is a rare beast, he’s a talented, creative economist. His recent departure from Morgan Stanley, and by implication from the Global Economic Forum, is now being widely commented on in the press (and here).

Andy was really one of the first global economists to start drawing attention to the important impact the rise of the Chinese economy was going to have (you can find a selection of some of his posts on my page here, and my early China Economy Watch blog – now defunct – was full of citations from Andy, basically he was getting it right when almost everyone else was getting it wrong).

There are two memorable arguments that Xie has advanced over the years that still bear thinking about.

1) Throw away the text books. This wasn’t meant, I don’t think, to be taken literally, what he was getting at was that we are facing new phenomena, and we need to think on our feet. Intuitive economics. Two recent posts of mine (and comments) on the Indian Economy Blog reflect this legacy (and here).

2). It’s time to start conceptualising the global economy as *one* single developing economy (with a lot of market imperfections) rather than as the sum total of a lot of discrete individual economies. I still think that this idea hasn’t attracted the attention it deserves as a methodological proposal.

Ostensibly Andy left as a result of remarks he made about Singapore (if you believe the rumour mill):
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Getting Hotter in Hungary

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As we have noted on Afoe in recent weeks Hungarian society seems badly divided and faces daunting economic adjustments (and here). This weekend’s municipal elections seem to have resolved nothing, with both sides seeming effectively able to claim some sort of victory:

Preliminary results released by the election office, with some nearly all the votes counted, showed Fidesz winning the mayorships in 15 of Hungary’s 23 largest cities, as well majorities in 18 of 19 county councils.

The Socialists retained power in most of Budapest’s 23 districts and Budapest Mayor Gabor Demszky — supported by the two-party governing coalition — won his fifth consecutive term since the 1990 return to democracy.

Not surprisingly under the circumstances the temperature is rising fairly rapidly. Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany yesterday asked the Hungarian parliament to hold a vote of confidence in his government (and this will now take place on Friday). On Sunday night Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom called on Gyurcsany to step down.

With the outcome of Friday’s vote seeming to lean in Gyurcsany’s favour the opposition Fidesz party are getting frustrated and restless. Opposition leader Viktor Orban is already crying ‘foul’:

Opposition leader Viktor Orban of the Fidesz party said the confidence vote was a “deceitful and worthless trick.” He called instead for a constructive vote of no-confidence in parliament, in which the coalition would be forced to name a new prime ministerial candidate.

While Lajos Kosa, a Fidesz vice president, is being downright provocative:

“The budget will come and further austerity measures worth 1,000 billion forints ($4.6 billion) will come too and then in the spring all of us will be chased out (from parliament), all of us, because a general uprising may break out in the country”

Indeed the party is currently threatening to boycott the vote:

“We will not be there… we won’t take part in this comedy,” Fidesz parliament faction leader Tibor Navracsics told a news conference.

Which all takes us back to that early guest post by P O’Neill where he perceptively warned:

“But an older concern is working its way back onto the agenda: how to handle an economic crisis in a member country……However, the risk of the latter type of crisis in a member country is now quite high.”

Immigration Under The Microscope

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With the arrival of Romania and Buglaria as full members of the EU the issue of migration is once more attracting a lot of attention. Stefan Wagstyl recently had an FT piece which gave a fair overview of the kind of debate which is presently going on in the UK, where the substantial (and largely welcomed) movement of large numbers of migrants from Poland and other Eastern Accession countries has now lead to an ongoing reflection over whether a repeat performance with its origins in the latest member countries would be considered so desireable. Immigration obviously has the capacity to bring out both the best and the worst in us, often at one and the same time.
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Have Global Interest Rates Peaked?

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With the ECB adamant that it will continue to raise rates this would seem to be the most untimely of questions, but there are now signs that this may well be the case.

Firstly this in Bloomberg today:

Federal Reserve to Cut Rates in 2007, Corporate Bond Sales Show

Thinking about refinancing your mortgage in the U.S.? Wait a year. Considering a certificate of deposit? Sign up now. While economists debate whether the Federal Reserve will cut its target interest rate for overnight loans between banks from 5.25 percent, investors have already decided the central bank will reduce borrowing costs next year. Nowhere is that clearer than in the market for floating-rate notes, whose interest payments rise and fall with central bank policy. Sales of so-called floaters are slowing for the first time since the Fed started raising interest rates in June 2004. They’ve fallen to $21.5 billion in September from a monthly average of $35 billion this year through August, according to data compiled by JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Now one swallow doesn’t make a summer, and it is early days yet, but take a look at ten year US Treasury Bonds:

U.S. 10-year Treasuries fell, halting a five-day rally, before a report today forecast to show consumer confidence gained this month.The gains ended on speculation yields at their lowest since March will deter some investors. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note rose 2 basis points, or 0.02 percentage point, to 4.56 percent as of 6:37 a.m. in New York, according to bond broker Cantor Fitzgerald LP. The price of the 4 7/8 security due August 2016 fell 5/32, or $1.56 per $1,000 face amount, to 102 15/32. Bond yields move inversely to prices.

So today we have nudged the yield back up a little, but the rate has been dropping steadily since March. And yesterday Bloomberg were being even more explicit:
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