The Fed's Tapering Talk: a Short Statement's Long Impact on Indonesia
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261849 HKS Ash CVR.qxp_Document 2 6/21/16 3:18 PM Page 1 hsA retnC lanoiscO Psrepa Tno y ,hciaS seirS rotidE ehT F’de s T gnirepa T :kla A trohS ’tnemaS s gnoL tcapmI no aisenodI Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation Harvard Kennedy School Muhamad Chatib Basri 79 John F. Kennedy Street Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 T 617.495.0557 F 617.495.4948 www.ash.harvard.edu June 2016 Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation Harvard Kennedy School 261849 HKS Ash CVR.qxp_Document 2 6/21/16 3:18 PM Page 2 Ash Center Occasional Papers Series Series Editor Tony Saich Deputy Editor Jessica Engelman The Roy and Lila Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation advances excellence and inno- vation in governance and public policy through research, education, and public discussion. The Ford Foundation is a founding donor of the Center. Additional information about the Ash Center is available at www.ash.harvard.edu. This research paper is one in a series funded by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. The views expressed in the Ash Center Occasional Papers Series are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the John F. Kennedy School of Government or of Harvard University. The papers in this series are intended to elicit feedback and to encourage debate on important public policy challenges. This paper is copyrighted by the author(s). It cannot be reproduced or reused without permission. Ash Center Occasional Papers Tony Saich, Series Editor The Fed’s Tapering Talk: A Short Statement’s Long Impact on Indonesia Muhamad Chatib Basri June 2016 Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation Harvard Kennedy School Letter from the Editor The Roy and Lila Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innova- tion advances excellence and innovation in governance and public policy through research, education, and public discussion. Three major programs support our mission: • The Program on Democratic Governance researches those practices that resolve urgent social problems in developed and developing societies. • The Innovations in Government Program recognizes and promotes cre- ative and effective problem-solving by governments and citizens. • The Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia promotes research and training on Asia to disseminate best practices and improve public policy. Our Occasional Papers series highlights new research from the Center that we hope will engage our readers and prompt an energetic exchange of ideas in the public policy community. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008–2009 triggered the world’s most serious economic downturn since the 1929 Great Depression. This led to a series of unprecedented government interventions around the world to miti- gate the impact of the GFC and kick-start national economies. In the United States, government policies included a combination of three large fiscal stimulus packages and an aggressive monetary expansion through large- scale asset purchases, referred to as Quantitative Easing (QE). QE resulted in capital inflow to emerging markets, spurring economic growth, exchange rate appreciation, and financial sector booms. However, by May 2013, the US Federal Reserve began to talk about tapering its asset purchases, which had the opposite effect, known as the Taper Tantrum (TT): capital outflows from emerging markets, together with weakened exchange rates and tum- bling financial markets. In this paper, Dr. Muhamad Chatib Basri, who was Indonesia’s Minister of Finance during the TT period, analyzes the response to the TT of the five hardest-hit countries, dubbed the “Fragile Five” (Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Turkey), and describes how Indonesia was able to mitigate the negative effects of the TT so quickly and effectively. Dr. Basri’s account provides many insights in the realm of macroeconomic management amidst external shocks that should be quite useful to emerging markets as the Fed now contemplates raising interest rates, which could have the same impact as the TT. Dr. Basri wrote this paper while a Senior Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and is now in the Department of Economics at the University of Indonesia. You may find all of the Ash Center’s Occasional Papers online at ash.harvard.edu. Tony Saich, Series Editor and Director Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation Harvard Kennedy School Contents I. Introduction ...........................................................1 II. Literature Review ......................................................3 III. Living in a “False Normal World” ...........................................6 IV. Taper Tantrum .......................................................11 V. Policy Response and Stabilization Period ....................................13 VI. Indonesia and India Aren’t So Bad After All ..................................33 VII. Lessons Learned and the Way Forward ....................................36 Appendix .............................................................39 Notes ................................................................51 References ............................................................52 The Fed’s Tapering Talk: A Short Statement’s Long Impact on Indonesia I. Introduction The years from 2008 to 2014 are an important and extremely interesting period in terms of macroeconomic policy both in advanced and emerging market countries (EMs). We witnessed that in the US, from 2008 to 2013, a series of economic policies were issued in an effort to overcome the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2008. The most important policy was, of course, the Federal Reserve’s Unprecedented Monetary Policy (UMP) through large-scale asset purchases, namely Quantitative Easing (QE). This policy resulted in capital inflow to Emerging Markets (EMs), which triggered not only economic growth and a boom in financial sectors, but also exchange rate appreciation in EMs. The QE also triggered a commodity boom and high returns in EMs, which boosted investor optimism, reflected in the increase of portfolio investment in EMs (Saghaian and Reed, 2015; Sahay et al., 2014). But all parties must come to an end. As the US economy improved, in May 2013 the Fed began to talk about the possibility of ending its QE or tapering its asset purchases or bond-buying program. Similar to QE, the tapering talk also significantly impacted several EMs, including Indonesia. But unlike QE, the tapering talk resulted in capital outflow from EMs to advanced countries, particularly the US. As a result, exchange rates weakened dramatically, and the stock and bonds markets were hard-hit. This is now known as the Taper Tantrum (TT). The IMF (2014) and Morgan Stanley (2013) show that the TT impacted each country differently. Still, a group of countries experienced the worst effect. Mor- gan Stanley described these as the “Fragile Five” in 2013, consisting of Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Turkey. How did these countries become the Fragile Five? This will be discussed in this paper’s literature review. To face pressures in the financial market, these countries each undertook a series of macroeconomic policy efforts. Interestingly, Indonesia and India were able to handle the problem in the shortest time (about seven months) and succeeded in macroeconomic stabilization, evidenced by the decrease in their current account deficit and the stabilization of their financial markets. Capital inflow returned to Indonesia at the start of 2014. The IMF specifi- cally stated that Indonesia was able to handle the TT well. [S]ince mid 2013, Indonesia has taken significant steps to strengthen policy and reserve buffers . Aided by enhanced policy credibility and global push factors, external inflows to Indonesia have been supportive the past 18 months. Equity 1 The Fed’s Tapering Talk: A Short Statement’s Long Impact on Indonesia prices rebounded in the first half of 2014, including relative to most EME peers. Government bond yields have stabi- lized, with the fixed-income market buoyed by strong foreign inflows, which has led to an increase in reserves and helped keep the rupiah relatively stable against the U.S. dollar. (IMF, 2015:5) The same response was echoed in the international media1 as well as by the World Bank (2014). Media analysts argued that Indonesia and India were relatively successful in handling the situation. It must be recognized that the return of capital inflow increased the risk of vulnerability for Indonesia’s economy. This was proved in the second half of 2015, when the weakening of the Chinese economy, weakening terms of trade, and concern about the normalization of Indonesian monetary policy led to capital outflow in 2015. But this is not the focus of this paper. Rather, this paper will discuss the period from May 2013 to April 2014, when the TT first emerged and began to impact EMs, particularly Indonesia. April 2014 was chosen as the cut-off date as the market, media, and multilateral institutions all pointed to Indonesia’s return to stability at the end of February 2014. Several studies have focused on the TT, but this is the first study to specifically address in detail how Indonesia was able to step away from the Fragile Five, as well as to compare Indonesia to other Fragile Five countries. As mentioned above, the most important question to address is why was Indonesia relatively successful in facing the TT and breaking out from the Fragile Five? What