CHERRY Discussion Paper Series CHERRY DP 15/01
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
CHERRY Discussion Paper Series CHERRY DP 15/01 Any lessons for today? Exchange-rate stabilisation in Greece and South-East Europe between economic and political objectives and fiscal reality, 1841-1939 Matthias Morys Any lessons for today? Exchange-rate stabilisation in Greece and South-East Europe between economic and political objectives and fiscal reality, 1841-1939 Matthias Morys Department of Economics University of York August, 2015 Abstract We add a historical and regional dimension to the debate on the Greek debt crisis. Analysing the 1841-1939 exchange-rate experience of Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia/Yugoslavia, we find surprising parallels to the present: repeated cycles of entry to and exit from gold, government debt build-up and default, and financial supervision by West European countries. Periods of stable exchange-rates were more short-lived than in any other part of Europe as a result of “fiscal dominance”, i.e., a monetary policy subjugated to the treasury’s needs. Granger causality tests show that patterns of fiscal dominance were only broken under financial supervision, when strict conditionality scaled back the influence of treasury; only then were central banks able to pursue a rule-bound monetary policy and, in turn, stabilize their exchange-rates. Fiscal institutions have remained weak in the case of Greece and are at the heart of the current crisis. A lesson for today might be that the EU-IMF programmes – with their focus on improving fiscal capacity and made effective by conditionality similar to the earlier South-East European experience – remain the best guarantor of continued Greek EMU membership. Understandable public resentment against “foreign intrusion” needs to be weighed against their potential to secure the long-term political and economic objective of exchange-rate stabilisation. Keywords: fiscal dominance, gold standard, financial supervision, South- East Europe JEL classification: N13, N14, N23, N24, E63, F34 _____________________________ Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, the Wirtschaftshistorischer Ausschuss (Verein für Socialpolitik) and at the Banque de France. We are grateful to the participants for their spirited discussion and helpful suggestions. We owe a special thanks to the following people in helping us collect the data, sharing their data and/or explaining country-specific idiosyncracies for which knowledge of the local languages was often essential: Adriana Aloman, Rumen Avramov, Elisabeta Blejan, Olga Christodoulaki, Brandusa Costache, Sofia Lazaretou, Stefan Nikolic and Michael Palairet. Last but not least, the paper owes a great deal to discussions within the South-East European Monetary History Network (SEEMHN) on how best to interpret the SEE monetary experience. The usual disclaimer applies. 1 1. Introduction The on-going Greek financial crisis has laid bare serious economic fragilities in the South- Eastern corner of the 19 member strong euro area: a government debt stock of 170% of annual economic output of the Greek economy, a dangerous bank-sovereign embrace seriously undermining financial stability, and an economy in its seventh year of recession which has declined more than a quarter since its 2008 peak. In tandem with the process of weakening economic data, politics has become more difficult to navigate: torn between creditor demands for structural improvements of the economy and domestic reform fatigue, the Greek government attempts to please simultaneously the international and the domestic audience yet frustrates both in the process. As a result, the scenario of Grexit over the medium term – i.e., the exit of Greece from the euro area coupled with the reintroduction of a national currency – looms large, though few observers expect it to be imminent given the 12th July 2015 accords between Greece and its creditors. Yet while the Greek financial crisis boasts several superlatives – largest international bail-out ever, highest European Union debt-to-GDP ratio (and second only to Japan among the OECD countries) and a GDP decline of Great Depression proportions – and has generated an extraordinary academic and media attention since it broke in autumn 2009, several dimensions of it remain either completely unexplored or, at best, dangerously neglected. More specifically, a better understanding of Greece’s current travails requires adding both a regional and historical dimension. Not only has Greece itself suffered more than its fair share of financial crises since political independence in 1830, but these apparently recurring events have been embedded in a regional context prone to financial instability. To begin with the present: Greece’s economic problems – a twin deficit (budget and current account) financed by capital inflows before the 2008 global financial crisis which was brought under control thereafter only by outside financial help – are widely shared regionally, though on a lesser scale. Romania, the second largest South-East European (SEE in the following) economy after Greece, for instance, received 20 billion euro between 2009 and 2011 as part of the European Union balance-of-payments assistance programme (in conjunction with the International Monetary Fund) and has since then followed two similar programmes (2011-13, 2013-15), yet without drawing actual funds.1 Serbia (since 2009) and Kosovo (2010-2013) both required IMF stand-by-arrangements (with funds drawn) in the wake of the 2008 global 1 ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/assistance_eu_ms/romania/index_en.htm (last accessed 21st July 2015). 2 financial crisis. Similarly, most other South-East European countries were under IMF stand- by-arrangements (with funds drawn) either at some point before the 2008 crisis (Croatia 1994-2006; FYROM 1995-2013; Bulgaria 1997-2004; Turkey 1999-2008; Bosnia- Herzegovina 1999-2015) or have joined the regional “trend” since then (Albania: IMF extended fund facility 2014-2017).2 The only SEE country to have completely avoided foreign financial – which has always come together with politically sensitive conditions attached to the loans – is tiny Montenegro; though this partly reflects the fact that the country cannot experience a typical balance-of-payments crisis (which would potentially trigger IMF and EU assistance) as a result of its unilateral adoption of the euro. In sum, Greece is only the visible peak of a much-wider regional iceberg which has been in troubled waters since the end of the global capital cycle in 2008. The problem of this regional iceberg is this: while it might not be visible for a long time – especially when the seas of international finance are calm and global macroeconomic conditions are favourable –, it has never dissolved completely. SEE’s current travails stand in a long tradition of persistently weak government budgets, government debt-build up and default, entry into and exit from the dominant fixed exchange-rate system of the day and, last but not least, a delicate relationship between national government and foreign creditors. The Greek experience has tended to be more extreme, yet structurally similar to Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia/Yugoslavia, the other three Balkan countries with a monetary history stretching back to the 19th century.3 Uncovering and analysing this rich tradition – which in the case of Greece covers more than a century from political independence in 1830 to the outbreak of World War II in 1939 – and reflecting on potential lessons of the past for Greece and SEE today are the purpose of this paper. This paper is fundamentally concerned with two seemingly simple questions. First, why was adherence to both the Classical Gold standard and the interwar gold standard so short in SEE compared to the rest of Europe despite the clear political intention to join? Second, what was the experience with fixed exchange-rates? All four countries conducted fiscal policies inconsistent with monetary policy required to join and successfully adhere a fixed exchange-rate system. While there was strong political will to join the gold standard in all four countries, political actors failed to realise (or were unable to implement) balanced budgets as a pre-condition for successful adherence. Persistent budget deficits were either 2 http://www.imf.org/external/np/fin/tad/exfin1.aspx (last accessed 21st July 2015). 3 Albania became independent only in 1912; all other present-day SEE countries have become independent only since the early 1990s. 3 closed through seigniorage (early on through cheap silver and copper coinage, later by means of debt monetisation via the central bank) or capital imports. Reliance on excessive seigniorage – also referred to as inflationary finance or simply government finance by the printing press – did not allow for stable exchange-rates. Yet capital imports also conflicted with the political goal of exchange-rate stabilisation. Before World War I, rapidly increasing debt servicing costs structurally weakened the balance-of-payments of all four countries and made joining gold difficult. In the interwar period, joining was eased by the fact that large depreciation against the pre-1914 parity had become widespread practice (though nowhere was depreciation as large as in SEE), but adhering to the interwar gold standard in the short window 1928-1931 was still burdened by the high debt levels. Yet while seigniorage and capital imports were problematic on their own, it was their combination (with strong doses of each) in the period ca.