End of the Cycle Or End of an Era? Debt, Demographics and the Limits of Monetary Policy
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FOR PROFESSIONAL CLIENTS ONLY. NOT APPROVED FOR RETAIL DISTRIBUTION. MAY 2016 END OF THE CYCLE OR END OF AN ERA? DEBT, DEMOGRAPHICS AND THE LIMITS OF MONETARY POLICY > The current era of monetary policy began with the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Recurrent crises and increasingly experimental policy suggest we may be close to another shift in the monetary regime. Abdallah Nauphal, Insight Investment CEO At best, the time horizon of many investors stretches to the length of the current business cycle and when the next downturn might be expected. Few think in terms of eras. But sometimes a long-term perspective is required to peel away the complexities that we currently confront in order to see the full picture. For economic policy, the current era began with the collapse of the post-World War II Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system and its replacement with a fiat money regime. There is a lot of value in attempting to understand long-term trends. It is a form of analysis distinct from forecasting outcomes. The value of this sort of analysis is that it helps us to grasp the dimensions and drivers of the risks we face. One of the characteristics of this present era, particularly of late, has been recurrent crises. The most recent unfolded in three distinguishable waves. The first wave was centered on the US. Figure 1: The three stages of the global financial crisis The bursting of the property bubble led to the collapse of the subprime mortgage Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 market. Eventually, through transmission US housing market collapse mechanisms few understood or predicted, this ended with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. In turn, this brought the global Credit crunch financial system to the brink. Banking crisis Euro sovereign crisis The immediate result was the recapitalization of US banks via the $700 QE/NIRP TARP/QE/ZIRP EM borrowing binge billion Troubled Assets Relief Program + ‘whatever it takes’ (TARP). The Federal Reserve (Fed) also did + Commodity collapse all it could to boost liquidity by the now familiar prescription of a zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) combined with quantitative EM crisis easing (QE). Source: Insight and Goldman Sachs. The second wave broke in Europe. The banking crisis spread globally through the channel of the euro dollar market. THE THIRD WAVE BREAKS There has been a massive increase in The problem for Europe was that many of corporate debt accompanied by some The responses to the crisis in both the the countries could not afford to bail out resource misallocation. The rapid US and in Europe meant that credit their banking systems. The lack of a debt expansion of China, fueled by debt, conditions for borrowers were very easy. sharing mechanism at the EU or eurozone in turn spawned a capex boom among That was intentional. It was designed to level meant that the banking crisis commodity producers. A modest kick-start economies in the aftermath of morphed into a sovereign debt crisis. downturn in Chinese growth has laid the crisis and dispel the threat of bare significant over-supply in many The European Central Bank (ECB) followed deflation. However, it also created the commodity markets. Some emerging the Fed’s playbook. It cut interest rates and conditions for the third wave of the markets face the challenge of both began QE. It also offered further liquidity crisis – a sharp rise in emerging market increased indebtedness and a terms of to banks via numerous loan programs. borrowing. China is perhaps the most trade shock. This crisis is still unfolding. However, it took ECB President Mario telling example. Corporate borrowing It will probably end with another big dose Draghi’s famous promise in July 2012 to increased massively between 2008 and of monetary accommodation, with China do “whatever it takes” to calm markets. the end of 2015. the likeliest source. PROBLEM SOLVED? To find the true causes of the crisis and the working age population as a explain why it is proving chronic rather percentage of the total of a population, it Few disagree with the broad outlines of than cyclical we need to look for looks at the working age population as a this narrative. But there are highly divided underlying causes, the deep-rooted proportion of the non-working population views about what the ramifications are sources of this persistent instability. – it is a ratio of how many workers are and what happens next. There are some Most of the pertinent analyses have supporting retirees and the unemployed. commentators who believe that this is a tended to focus on economic and historic Figure 3 shows that there is a fairly close self-contained series of events and that it assessments of long-term capitalist cycles. correlation between nominal GDP and the is principally a banking crisis. Once the final Another way of approaching this problem dependency ratio. wave of the financial crisis in emerging is from the other direction, thinking about What is underlying the declining working markets recedes we will return to what drove economic growth in 1980s and age population, and dependency on fewer something that approximates to a normal 1990s and asking whether those forces workers to generate growth and pay for environment. The system will revert to are still at work today. There are three the benefits of the retired and unemployed, equilibrium. factors that are most relevant: is a declining birth rate and longer life demographics, globalization and debt. The opposing view is that there is an spans across the developed world. insolvency problem that has been ameliorated by liquidity but still remains. DEMOGRAPHIC HEADWINDS The direction of travel does not look The problem has not been solved. There There are certain demographic indicators promising. Unless there is a significant has been over-investment funded by debt that can be projected into the future with boost to productivity this does not bode that has created a world in which there is a reasonably high degree of certainty. well for future economic growth. an excess of supply relative to demand. One is the working age population as a Unfortunately, productivity trends have That is supported by a mountain of debt percentage of the total population. This is a been heading in the opposite direction collateralized by over-inflated assets. proxy for the labor force. The change in the almost everywhere. labor force and increases in productivity is That is a sort of equilibrium, but it is a One way to address this problem would be what drives changes in nominal GDP. profoundly unstable one. The symptoms to open borders to immigration. After all, include disinflation, weak capex, and Figure 2 shows the working age there is still population growth in the currency wars. This prognosis suggests population for a range of developed and world. The United Nations estimates that that there is still a very long way to go in developing economies since the 1950s. the global population will rise to 9.6 billion the adjustment process. The reforms that Throughout the period between 1950 and from 7.2 billion over the next 40 years. have occurred so far have addressed the 2000, the working age population was The problem is that this population growth illiquidity problem, but that is not a cure growing. It has now gone into decline in is in the “wrong” places. for insolvency. many major economies (the exception is For some, an open door immigration Japan where it was already declining at The banking crisis has largely been policy would represent the logical the end of the 1980s). The baby boomer addressed. Banks are better capitalized conclusion of the process of globalization. generation that boosted the post-war today than they were prior to the crisis But the limits of globalization are arguably workforce is now retiring. and the financial system is on a surer already being reached, in large part footing. The question remains: why do A variant of this indicator is the because it has not delivered what some of the symptoms of the crisis persist? dependency ratio. Instead of looking at its proponents had promised. Figure 2: Working age population declines as baby boomers retire... Figure 3: ...and US dependency ratio points to declining nominal GDP 80 2016 20% 3.0 75 ) 2.5 15% 70 Dependency ratio 2.0 65 10% 1.5 60 5% 1.0 55 Working age population (% Change in nominal GDP (%) 0% 50 0.5 45 -5% 0.0 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 Germany France Japan US Korea UK OECD GDP US dependency ratio (modelled) Forecast Source: United Nations population prospects 2012 revision. Source: UBS estimates, Factset, and Haver Analytics. Lower income groups have a higher marginal propensity to consume. Conversely, the richer you are the more likely you are to save. The top 1% of the income distribution saves 51% of what it earns. Greater concentration of income lowers consumption. Figure 4: Growth in income skewed… Figure 5: …and the richest grab the spoils Real income gains and global income distribution 1988-2008 Change in US real income Top 10% 90 300 80 250 70 60 200 50 40 150 30 Without China 100 20 90% 10 50 Real PPP income change (%) 0 0 -10 -20 Change in real income from 1948 to 2010 (%) -50 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 Percentile of income distribution Top 10 percent 90 percent Source: Pew Research. Source: International Monetary Fund. INEQUALITY STYMIES approached these levels was in the Roaring earns.