Tag Archives: Economics and demography

Europe’s ‘Tiger’

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Last Friday Eurostat released the 2004 data on comparative per capita PPP’s (purchasing power parities) across the EU. Perhaps the most surprising fact which emerges is that Ireland is now in second place (after Luzembourg) with a PPP 40% above the EU average. For a country that not so long ago was considered one of the ‘poorer’ EU members this is truly stunning.

It is generally well known that Ireland had (and continues to have) one of the highest fertility and population growth rates in the EU, but this has not been regarded as especially important since conventional neo-clasical growth theory (and the new ‘super-duper’endogenous growth theory for that matter) argue that increased population means a bigger economy, but not necessarily an increase in per capita income. However, as I said yesterday, it’s all about population structure. What we are now understanding is that the right age structure can produce very rapid increases in per capita income, and Ireland is, of course, a good case in point.

In the case of the ‘Celtic Tiger’, New Economic Paradigm theorists David Bloom and David Canning, who have made a specific study of the Irish case, reached the following conclusions:
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Your Next Car ‘Made in China’?

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China is getting into car manufacture in a big way, but before going further with this, let me sidetrack you to another article in today’s FT. Here you will find two interesting details. Firstly, according to Arthur Kroeber, of China Economic Quarterly, ?Since 2003, China has gone from being a net importer of capital goods to being a net exporter”. I’m still loking for some confirmation of this, but if true, it is very significant. The other detail: overcapacity means there is a continuing price war in China, and factory gate prices are falling. This point needs to be borne in mind by all those who imagine a rise in the value of the Renminbi would produce a comparative increase in ‘mark to market’ prices for consumers. I’m with Morgan Stanley’s Andy Xie here, overcapacity is likely to be such that the ‘pass through’ rate would be minimal, most of the on-costs being absorbed by an ever more deflationary environment in China.

Interestingly enough, Jean Claude Trichet gave three arguments, at the end of his press conference yesterday, in order to justify the urgent necessity for the Lisbon Agenda: ageing, technological changes, and growing global competition (or labour arbitrage in Stephen Roach’s language). I couldn’t agree more.

Now for the cars. Yale Global has reproduced an interesantissimo supplement from the FT:

Automakers may see China as a growing market, but soon they may face unexpected competition from a number of manufacturers who are seeking to export to the West, as well. Several Chinese companies have already begun a trial run in the Middle East to prepare for the US market, the goal of more than two decades of attempts to build a competitive car industry. The Chinese companies will encounter numerous obstacles and opponents ? including the multinational companies that currently dominate the global markets ? but if successful, they could reshape the auto industry. Because the economies of countries like the US and Germany depend heavily on the auto industry, the implications of such a move are substantial. How will the West respond?

Read-on here

He Would Say That Wouldn’t He II

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In some ways I think this story may run and run over the months to come. Bloomberg have an update on their earlier article. According to the latest account:

1/. The German Finance Ministry have declined to comment on the Stern report that discussions took place last week between Finance Minister Hans Eichel, Bundesbank President Axel Weber and various economists on a possible failure of European Monetary Union.
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‘Gloom’ After French Vote

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The Washington Times (of all places) carries a UPI text about a Deutsch Bank research note on the economic consequences of the French ‘no’:

“France’s rejection of the European Union constitutional treaty by a majority of 54.9 percent is a severe blow to European integration and threatens to depress European economy back into eurosclerosis as in the 1980s, warns Deutsche Bank in a research analysis published Monday.”
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French Referendum: Italian Bonds Hit

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What, you may ask, has Italian government debt got to do with the French ‘no’ vote: everything would be my answer. (If you want to know more about this, thumb down my euro posts). The lack of a convincing advance towards political union makes Italian government debt riskier, so they have to pay more interest. This is, at present just a small breach, but it is one which is widening, and I fear this is the point at which the euro dyke will eventually breach:

“The euro hit a fresh 7-month low against the dollar and Italian government bonds came under strain on Monday after French voters gave a decisive thumbs-down to the proposed European Union constitution…………….The strains the French vote could have on the euro zone were reflected in government bonds. The spread on Italian BTP bonds over German debt touched 23 basis points, the highest level since November 2002, as so-called peripheral euro zone bonds suffered.”

The problem is that the markets have now ‘wised up’ to the problem, and will now be tracking Italian government debt as an issue in itself.

Looking On The Brighter Side Of Life

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Oh come on, it’s Friday afternoon, the sun is probably shining all over continental europe, and you’re all probably off away from your desks for a weekend in the country or on the beach. So why spoil the fun. I’ll save my piece on Portugal till Monday. And meantime, you deserve something better than ‘gloomy Edward’ on such an afternoon, so why not, the opposite view: Stephen – ‘bright sider’ – Roach:

“As a congenital euro-skeptic, I will be the first to admit that it feels rather uncomfortable rising to the defense of Old Europe. But someone has to. The world is down on the Mother Continent as never before. And Europe, itself, is caught up in a bout of self-flagellation that is getting worse by the day. The risk, in my view, is that this is an overdone story of cyclical angst. While the economic outlook for Europe is far from terrific, it?s not nearly as bad as the consensus mindset would lead you to believe……. At the same time, I would concede that the tails of the political verdict could well have major impacts on financial markets. A decisive French rejection of the EU constitution could force markets to raise the probability of an EMU break-up. A ?yes? vote, by contrast, could spark a huge rally in the euro and in most-euro-denominated assets. We?ll know soon enough.”

I think I’ll deal with this, and with Henry’s arguments when the votes are safely in and counted. Have a nice weekend everyone :).

In The Interest of Fairness and Balance

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Looking forwards rather than backwards, I can’t help trying to imagine what the world will look like on Monday. (We may all be in for a surprise, but the latest poll seems to put the ‘no’ at 55%, which is quite a large margin of error if it’s wrong, *and* Le Monde today makes the point that as the ‘no’ rises and rises in the polls, the number of undecided voters continues to reduce).

Well, ironically I think one of the consequences will be an attempt to enforce the Stability and Growth Pact. This is why I mention being fair and balanced, since in the past I may have been a little too cynical about this: although not without reason.

I now think The Pact Mark II may have considerably more bite, here’s why:
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Falling rate of Intelligence?

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Conventional marxist theory used to argue that capitalism was doomed to regular and deepening crisis due to the impact of a phenomen known as ‘the falling rate of profit’. Basically the idea runs as follows: since on the marxist view labour is the only source of genuine wealth creation, and capital accumulation means that the proportion of active labour to ‘dead labour’ (capital investment) tends to decline, then the ‘rate of profit’ will diminish accordingly. Now I certainly have no intention of going into all this rigmorole, but I do remember some wit back in the seventies suggesting that if this was the case, then, for example, we could argue that intelligence must be falling, since the quantity of active human brainpower as a proportion of accumulated knowledge (living to dead ‘mental labour’) was constantly diminishing.

Well, low and behold, a paper out this week at the NBER argues just this case.
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The Mysteries of Growth: France & Germany

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The latest data on French household spending show that it rose rather faster than expected in April. This suggests that consumer spending is still supporting economic growth in sharp contrast with the pattern in Germany. In Germany the domestic economy actually *contracted* in the first quarter. True the German economy grew, but this was due exclusively to the export sector. So while the German domestic economy has been struggling France has been one of the eurozone’s best performing economies, with consumer spending and a booming housing market supporting growth. The French consumer is, it seems, considerably more robust than the German one.

So the big question is why the difference? They are both economies which according to the criteria of the Lisbon agenda are badly in need of reform. My own view, almost inevitably, is that this might well have something to do with the differing demographies of the two countries. Fertility is much higher in France – at nearly replacement rate – and over the years France has had a lot more long term immigration. Surely other factors are important: but which ones are they? Any constructive suggestions anyone?