The Impact of Unconventional Monetary Policy on Gendered Wealth Inequality1
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ARTÍCULOS Papeles de Europa ISSN-e 1989-5917 http://dx.doi.org/10.5209/PADE.63637 The impact of unconventional monetary policy on gendered wealth inequality1 Brigitte Young2 Fecha de recepción: junio de 2018 / Fecha de aceptación: Marzo de 2019 Abstract. Unconventional monetary policy was implemented as a result of the financial crisis and resulted in rising asset prices in the stock markets. While the increase in asset prices is not exclusively triggered by unconventional monetary policy, central bankers accept that unconventional monetary policy has resulted in distributional effects on wealth, and that these are not negligible. What is missing are studies analyzing whether these non-standard monetary policies have different distributional effects on women and men. The intent of the paper is to interrogate whether unconventional monetary policy of central banks has a gender bias that operates in favor of men as gender and against women as gender. Relying on insights from feminist economics, the paper uses the results of the ECB Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) of 62,000 household across 15 euro-area countries. While the results are tentative, they show an asymmetric distributional gendered impact. Since the rich own more assets than the poor, and since monetary easing works in part by raising asset prices, these unconventional policies may unintentionally benefit the wealthier quintile (on average more male) at the expense of the poorer strata of society (on average more female). Keywords: Central European Bank; Unconventional Monetary Policy; Feminist Economics; Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS); Gendered Asset Bias and Gendered Wealth Inequality. [es] El impacto de la política monetaria no convencional sobre la desigualdad de género de la riqueza Resumen. La política monetaria no convencional fue implementada como resultado de la crisis financiera, resultando en precios crecientes de los activos en los mercados de valores. Mientras que este incremento en los precios de los activos no está causado exclusivamente por la política monetaria, los bancos centrales aceptan que la política monetaria no convencional ha causado efectos redistributivos sobre la riqueza, y que éstos no son despreciables. Sin embargo, son inexistentes los estudios que analicen si estas políticas monetarias no convencionales tienen diferentes efectos redistributivos entre mujeres y hombres. El objetivo de este artículo es cuestionar si la política monetaria no convencional tiene un sesgo de género que opera a favor del hombre como género y en contra de la mujer como género. Apoyándonos en las aportaciones de economistas feministas, el artículo emplea los resultados de la Encuesta del Eurosistema sobre la Situación Financiera y el Consumo de los Hogares (HFCS) realizada por el BCE sobre una muestra de 62.000 hogares de la UE-15. Si bien los resultados son tentativos, muestran un impacto redistributivo asimétrico en cuanto al género. Como las clases altas poseen más activos que las bajas y, como la política monetaria funciona en parte incrementando los precios de los activos, estas políticas no convencionales posiblemente beneficien de manera no intencional al quintil más adinerado (por lo general masculino) a expensas del estrato más pobre de la sociedad (por lo general femenino). Palabras clave: Banco Central Europeo, Política Monetaria no Convencional, Feminismo Económico, Encuesta del Eurosistema sobre la Situación Financiera y el Consumo de los Hogares Elaborada por el BCE, Sesgo de los Activos de Género y la Desigualdad de la Riqueza de Género. JEL: B54, E00, E40, E52, E58, E65 1 I want to thank Martina Metzger for her very helpful comments and insights on monetary policies of central banks, and Diane Elson for the many discussions on this topic. I also wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments. The usual caveat applies that in the end, I am responsible for the arguments presented in this paper. 2 University of Münster [email protected] Pap. Eur. 31(2) 2018: 175-185 175 176 Young, B. Pap. Eur. 31(2) 2018: 175-185 1. Introduction icy has resulted in academic analysis of the distributional impacts, particularly of quantita- Thomas Piketty in his highly acclaimed book, tive easing. QE, in a narrow sense, is the ex- Capital in the 21st Century (2014), catapulted pansion of central banks’ balance sheets by the issue of inequality onto the agenda of ac- purchasing high quality, low risk premium ademia and politics, as well as onto the front bonds. It further comprises the purchase of pages of prestigious newspapers around the lower quality, higher risk private bonds and the globe. Contrary to many mainstream econ- purchase of government bonds. Studies show omists, Piketty argued that the inequality of that QE displays wide quantity, price, and wealth is not due to market imperfections and structural effects on the balance sheets of fi- absence of technological skills among the poor nancial intermediaries and, to some extent, on and lower middle-class, but stems from the the company and private household sector via logic of finance-dominated capitalism. Com- a change in the supply of and demand for cred- mensurate with the political shift to lower tax- it and assets (Metzger/Young, forthcoming). ation since the early 1980s and the liberaliza- Admittedly, there is no clear-cut picture on tion of the financial markets since the collapse the distributional impacts on income and of the Bretton Woods System, inequality and wealth inequality due to changes in asset pric- the volatility of global financial markets has es. Arguments demonstrating a positive distri- increased in comparison to the previous Trente butional impact on income rest on the assump- Glorieuses (2014:15). Due to the financiali- tion of the traditional monetary transmission zation of the global economy (Epstein 2005), mechanism. Due to reduced borrowing costs the growth in private wealth has created a sit- and increased credit supply, aggregate demand uation in which the rate of return on capital is in the economy will also increase, resulting in larger than the rate of growth of the economy a rise in both production and employment (Piketty 2014). As a result, the distributional which will reduce income inequality. As a re- divergence of wealth has accelerated and in- sult, there are positive distributional effects creased income inequality, precarious employ- over the medium term related to boosting ag- ment, and polarization among the rich and gregate demand, lowering unemployment, and poor within and across countries on a global contributing to price stability, all of which tend scale. In fact, the 2015 Oxfam Report shows to reduce inequality (ECB 2017: 50). that 62 individual people (of whom 53 are However, taking into account the total men) owned as much wealth as the poorer half economy, we raise reasonable doubts to the va- of the world population (around 3,6 billion) lidity of the above cited arguments. According in 2015. In 2010, the figure was 388; and in to Domanski et al., (2014), it is the boosting of 2014, 80 people possessed as much wealth as equity prices which drives the wealth inequal- the poorer half of the global population. The ity in the eurozone in the course of unconven- wealth of the richest people grew by about 45 tional monetary policy. The reasoning, based per cent in only five years (Oxfam 2016). on empirical survey and analysis, is twofold: One important and still contested factor, al- first, equity prices have risen stronger on aver- beit not the only one, is the introduction of the age than prices of other assets like bonds or unconventional monetary policies of the cen- real estate; and second, equities are highly tral banks in high-income countries. This in- concentrated in the top-income quintile. Both volves purchases of large-scale assets to stim- factors taken together cause a stronger increase ulate economic growth by keeping the credit in wealth inequality in comparison to other as- market functioning and interest rates low set classes (Metzger/Young, forthcoming). (Goodhart et al., 2014). As investment oppor- It is somewhat surprising that feminist po- tunities are drying up and profit margins are litical economists have paid little attention to falling as a result of the so-called secular stag- the macroeconomic phenomenon such as how nation, (Summers 2014) one of the few games central banks’ monetary policies shape and left in town is to use the central banks’ cheap structure gender relations across all levels of liquidity to invest in equities fueling the hy- economic, political, social, and cultural life. per-activities in the stock markets. The persis- This paper will analyze how the unconvention- tence of central bank interest rates at the zero al monetary policies of central banks have pro- lower bound and the consecutive shift of major duced unequal distributional outcomes be- central banks to unconventional monetary pol- tween women and men, and thus increased Young, B. Pap. Eur. 31(2) 2018: 175-185 177 gendered wealth inequality. Using the insight 15 Euro-area countries. From this data-set, I of feminist economics that gender is endoge- extrapolate some gender impacts on how nous to the economic process, Staveren (2011) households allocate their assets, and how asset suggests that there is an integrated two-way holdings are distributed among different relationship between the economy and gender households across 15 member states of the Eu- relations. In other words, the inequality in gen- ro-area. der relations can have negative effects on eco- nomic policy and, at the same time, on eco- nomic outcomes affecting men and women 2. Quantitative Easing, Private Wealth, differently. Equally important is the insight of and Response by Central Bankers feminist economists that all social institutions and policies emanating from such organiza- Central banks’ decision to start Quantitative tions bear and transmit gender (as well as class Easing (QE) is highly controversial in terms and ethnic-based) biases (Elson 1991; Elson/ of its effectiveness to stimulate the economy Catagay 2000; Young 2013).