Day: November 10, 2015

The social democrats from the IMF

Michael Reddell IMF, New Zealand economic performance

The social democrats from Washington –  the IMF –   have been in town, and today released their preliminary report.  It is quite strikingly different to the last one, released in March last year.    The so-called Concluding Statement, at the end of the team’s 10 days or so in New Zealand, isn’t very long, and can’t cover lots of things in depth, so keep that in mind as you read the rest of this post.

The mission team will have spent a lot of time with Treasury and Reserve Bank staff.  Indeed, the draft of the Concluding Statement will have been haggled over in a meeting with fairly senior officials from the two agencies, and it is pretty rare for the final product to contain anything that those agencies have much disagreement with.  Indeed, Fund missions can get so close to staff in the host countries that even when two countries, reviewed by teams led by the same mission chief, have much the same circumstances, the policy advice will at times differ –  seemingly to reflect what the authorities in the two countries want.  A great example last time round was direct regulatory interventions in the housing finance market, which the IMF has enthusiastically supported here, but had been silent on in Australia.  I’m not sure if the mission chiefs are still the same for the two countries, but checking the most recent concluding statement for Australia, I notice that the inconsistency has persisted.

Rereading the 2014 Concluding Statement the upbeat tone was unmistakeable.

“the economic expansion is becoming increasingly embedded and broad-based”

“with the economy set to continue to grow above trend in the near-term, pressures on core inflation should follow”

“we welcome the RBNZ”s shift toward a policy of withdrawing monetary stimulus, with the clear signal that it expects to increase rates steadily over the next two years”.

Oops.

(Although no doubt the Governor was pleased with the statement at the time.)

There is, of course, no hint in today’s Statement that the Fund might have misread things that badly last year.  Space constraints I suppose.

But what about this year’s Statement?

I was interested to read that “inflation is projected to rise to within the RBNZ”s target range of 1-3 per cent in 2016, as the impact of the decline in oil prices drops out, and the depreciation of the New Zealand dollar passes through”.  No mention anywhere, at least as far as I could see, of any rise in core inflation towards the mandated target midpoint.  But I guess they are running the same lines the Governor always does –  over-emphasising the one-offs (especially now that the exchange rate has rebounded) and quietly ignoring the persistent undershoot of core inflation.

But in some ways what really struck me about this year’s Statement was the wholesale leap into advocacy of a range of microeconomic and structural policies.  It is a very different emphasis from last year.  I know the Fund has changed mission chief for New Zealand, but surely there should be more continuity in the analysis and advice than this?

What do I have in mind?

Somewhat surprisingly, the Fund weighs in on immigration policy, noting that “continued high net immigration could pose challenges for short-term economic management, but in the longer run would boost growth”. Well, no one will really dispute the short-term demand pressures, but where is the IMF’s expertise in immigration?  How have they concluded that our past immigration has boosted (per capita) growth?  They might be right (or not) but how does it relate to the core macroeconomic and financial stability mandates of the IMF?

The Fund then suggests, in a paragraph on government finances, that “in addition, investment in infrastructure and housing (in high-quality projects) should be accelerated where possible to support higher housing supply in Auckland, and infrastructure improvements”.  Where is the evidence of the central government infrastructure shortfalls?  Government capital expenditure in New Zealand has been among the highest in the OECD, as a share of GDP.  And what leads the Fund to think the government should be building houses itself (only high quality ones  mind)? It all seems rather unsupported, and far from the principal mandate of the IMF.

They note too that “intensifying efforts already underway to boost higher density housing would be welcome”. What gives the IMF the basis for suggesting government policy should be skewed towards higher density housing?  And how does it all connect to macroeconomic stability anyway?

Last year, the IMF was cautious about further regulatory prudential measures –  tools should be “used sparingly and with caution”, but this year they are champing at the bit –  no doubt reflecting the Governor’s new enthusiasm.  After a perfunctory observation that “the impact of the new [prudential] measures to reduce financial stability risks will need to be evaluated”, they rush straight into “but the authorities should be prepared if further steps are needed”.   I suppose that could be seen as just contingency planning, but there is no sense here at all that these interventionist measures could conceivably have costs, or that any benefits might be small.

Last year , there was no mention of tax issues at all, but now not only are “the newly introduced measures to deter speculative investment“ welcomed (those evil  “speculators” at it again –  can’t have them in a market economy) but “and further steps in this direction should be envisaged”.   The Fund apparently favours “a more comprehensive reform to reduce the tax advantage of housing over other forms of investment“  [that would be unleveraged owner-occupiers they were targeting?] and “reducing the scope for negative gearing”.    Many people might agree with the Fund, as a matter of tax policy, but where is the evidence, including the cross-country insights that (these issues are important that) the Fund is supposed to be able to offer?  And where is the consistency from one mission to the next?  If agencies like the IMF have substantive use –  as distinct from a convenient echo of the preferences of the Reserve Bank or Treasury –  it has to be keeping a clear focus on the longer-term issues that matter to macroeconomic and financial stability.

There are some odd features to the statement.  In one place, they say that “stress tests  indicate that the sector [banks] can withstand “a sizeable shock to house prices, the terms of trade and economic activity”, but then a page or so later they observe “financial system stress tests suggest it is able to withstand –  at least in the short-term  –  adverse developments related to China spillovers, dairy prices and the housing market”.  I think the final haggling session with officials must have missed something, and will be interested to see if the “in the short-term” caveat reflects something coming out in tomorrow’s FSR.

The other odd feature is this “on the one hand, on the other hand” paragraph

Monetary policy has been focused on the primary objective of price stability. Only if financial stability risks become broad based and prudential policy is insufficient to contain them, then using monetary policy to ‘lean against the wind’ could be considered as part of a broader strategy to rein in financial stability risks. Even in this case, the benefits would need to be weighed against the output costs and the risk of policy reversals.

They would have been better simply to have left it out.  Monetary policy in New Zealand has no statutory basis for pursuing anything other than medium-term price stability, and it hasn’t even been doing that overly well.  Having already had only an anaemic recovery, partly because of an overly cautious Reserve Bank, and two policy reversals –  a record for the OECD –  the IMF might have been better advised to simply urge the Reserve Bank to do its job –  deliver inflation consistently around the middle of the target range.    When they get back to the office, perhaps the mission staff could talk to Lars Svensson, currently at the IMF, about the attractions (or otherwise) of using monetary policy to “lean against the wind”.

The Concluding Statement wraps up with a discussion of Medium-Term Policies.   Last time round, they had a balanced, but high level, discussion which noted structural imbalances between savings and investment (by definition, since the current account has long been in deficit], and noted that structural measures might be needed “to address the savings-investment gap”.    Probably reflecting the IMF’s limited expertise in the area, it went no further, and did not even attempt a diagnosis as to whether any issues might more probably be found on the savings side than the investment side.

But this time round savings is confidently identified as the problem.  We have, according to them “chronically low national saving” and “raising saving is the key to addressing this vulnerability”, “in particular household saving”.    They don’t back any of this up, they don’t suggest reasons why private savings behaviour might be inappropriate, or identify policy distortions that are creating problems.  Instead, they jump straight in to solutions

comprehensive measures to encourage private long-term financial saving should be considered, including through reform of retirement income policies. Options include changing the parameters of the Kiwisaver scheme—e.g., default settings, access to funds, and taxation—to increase coverage and contributions while containing fiscal costs, and adjustment of parameters of the public pension system. This could help deepen New Zealand’s capital markets and broaden options for retirement planning.

“Broadening options for retirement planning” fits how with the Fund’s mandate, or expertise?  Did they recognise that New Zealand already has both a low elderly poverty rate and fiscal expenditure on public pension that, while rising quite rapidly, is not high by international standards?

Did they, for that matter, even attempt to back up the claim that New Zealand has “chronically low national savings”.    If you are going to compare national savings rates, you really have to use national income as the denominator (ie savings of residents relative to the incomes of residents) .  In this chart, from the OECD database, I’ve compared New Zealand’s net national savings rate (as a percentage of net national income) to the median for the other Anglo countries (Australia, Canada, Ireland, US, and UK).

net savings

Both lines are below the median for the OECD grouping as a whole – although in the most recent year we were almost bang on the OECD median –  but over 25 years our net savings rate has simply fluctuated around the median of those countries most culturally similar to us.  Where is the “chronic” savings problem?    And given how strong our public accounts are –  better than those of any of the Anglo countries other than Australia –  how likely is that our feckless private sector is behaving as irresponsibly as the IMF mission staff suggest?   Perhaps Treasury has updated its view again, but I was involved in an exercise a couple of years ago in which Treasury made a pretty concerted effort to look for areas where policy might be driving down private savings rates (relative to those in other countries).  They looked hard, but it was a pretty unsuccessful quest.

And, finally, here is the IMF”s last paragraph

Despite the implementation of successful structural reforms in the 1980s, productivity levels have remained low compared to OECD peers. To raise productivity, the government’s business growth agenda has identified a number of policy priorities. Specifically, the Productivity Commission has highlighted the need to raise productivity in the services sector (which accounts for 70 percent of the economy). Measures include boosting competition in key sectors such as finance, real estate, retail, and business and other professional services; and leveraging ICT technology more intensively, including by enhancing skills.

I thought, and think, that most of the reforms of the late 1980s and early 1990s were in the right direction.  But a sceptic might reasonably ask what is the definition of “success” when productivity gaps have not just remained large, but widened further since then.  Perhaps more importantly, what is this paragraph doing here?  Long-term income convergence issues aren’t really in the IMF’s remit, and the IMF doesn’t seem to have anything useful to offer on the subject.  The paragraph is little more than an advertorial for the Business Growth Agenda –  itself so far signally unsuccessful in lifting exports or closing productivity gaps –  and the Productivity Commission.

We really should expect something better, and more authoritative and more focused, from the IMF.  Perhaps it will come with the full report in a couple of months time, but I’m not optimistic.

Flexicurity: the way ahead for New Zealand?

Michael Reddell labour party, unemployment

I finally caught up yesterday with Grant Robertson’s interview on The Nation.

There was the odd good aspect.  It sounds as though the variable Kiwisaver policy, as a tweaky tool to supplement to monetary policy, is heading for the dustbin, joining the capital gains tax proposal.  Other bits bothered me –  in particular, the lack of any sense in Robertson’s comments of the importance of markets, competition, relative prices etc.  He is clearly a believer in the power and beneficence of “smart active government”.

And I’m still a bit uneasy when I hear Robertson talk about changing the Reserve Bank Act to place a specific onus on the Reserve Bank to promote employment (or reduce unemployment).  It will be important to see details.  In principle, an amendment to section 8 of the Reserve Bank Act to say something along the lines of “achieve and maintain a stable level of prices, so that monetary policy can makes it maximum contribution to sustainable full employment and the economic and social welfare of the people of New Zealand” might do no harm.  It would, in fact, be not dissimilar to words that have been in the Policy Targets Agreement in the past.  On other hand, requiring the Bank to, say, actively target the lowest rate of unemployment consistent with maintaining price stability would be another matter.  Right at the moment it might be quite good advice to this Governor, who seems particularly uninterested in the plight of the (cyclically) unemployed.  But over time it would risk imparting a bias to the Reserve Bank’s choices that might well lead to persistently higher inflation outcomes over time.  That wouldn’t help anyone.

But the bit of the interview I was most interested in was the discussion around a possible different approach to help facilitate people moving from one job to another, as technology and opportunities evolve and change.  Robertson seems taken with the Danish “flexicurity” approach.  I didn’t know much about it, but in my younger days the idea of active labour market policies had had some appeal, so I thought I would take a quick look.  In some respects, Denmark’s experience is one to try to emulate:  prior to World War Two it was largely an agricultural economy, heavily reliant on agricultural exports to the United Kingdom, but poorer than us.  Now, while agriculture still plays an important part in the Danish economy ,other sectors have become much more important in the external trade and Denmark’s per capita income is far higher than New Zealand’s.

Here is how the Danish government describes “flexicurity”

A Golden Triangle Flexicurity is a compound of flexibility and security. The Danish model has a third element – active labour market policy – and together these elements comprise the golden triangle of flexicurity.

One side of the triangle is flexible rules for hiring and firing, which make it easy for the employers to dismiss employees during downturns and hire new staff when things improve. About 25% of Danish private sector workers change jobs each year.

The second side of the triangle is unemployment security in the form of a guarantee for a legally specified unemployment benefit at a relatively high level – up to 90% for the lowest paid workers.

The third side of the triangle is the active labour market policy. An effective system is in place to offer guidance, a job or education to all unemployed. Denmark spends approx. 1.5% of its GDP on active labour market policy.

Dual advantages The aim of flexicurity is to promote employment security over job security. The model has the dual advantages of ensuring employers a flexible labour force while employees enjoy the safety net of an unemployment benefit system and an active employment policy.

The Danish flexicurity model rests on a century-long tradition of social dialogue and negotiation among the social partners. The development of the labour market owes much to the Danish collective bargaining model, which has ensured extensive worker protection while taking changing production and market conditions into account. The organisation rate for workers in Denmark is approx. 75%.

The Danish model is supported by the social partners headed by the two main organisations – The Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) and The Confederation of Danish Employers (DA). The organisations – in cooperation with the Ministry of Employment have also jointly contributed to the development of common principles of flexicurity in the EU, resulting in the presentation of the communication “Towards common principles of flexicurity” by the European Commission in mid-2007.

And here is a link to an accessible VoxEu piece from a few years ago on the flexicurity approach and Denmark’s experience after 2007.

The Danish “flexicurity” model has achieved outstanding labour-market performance. The model is best characterised by a triangle. It combines flexible hiring and firing with a generous social safety net and an extensive system of activation policies. The Danish model has resulted in low (long-term) unemployment rates and the high job flows have led to high perceived job security (Eurobarometer 2010).

….

The employment protection constitutes the first corner of the triangle. For firms in Denmark, it is relatively easy to shed employees. Not only notice periods and severance payments are limited, also procedural inconveniences are limited. The employment protection legislation index of the OECD for regular contracts is only 1.5. The Netherlands and Germany, countries with employment protection legislation, have an index of 2.7 and 2.9 respectively.

And here I started getting a bit puzzled.  Denmark certainly makes it a lot easier than many European countries to shed employees.  But it is even easier in New Zealand.  On all 4 components of the OECD’s indicators of employment protection legislation, New Zealand ranks as less restrictive than Denmark –  quite materially so by the look of it.

The OECD indicators on Employment Protection Legislation
Scale from 0 (least restrictions) to 6 (most restrictions), last year available
  Protection of permanent workers against individual and collective dismissals Protection of permanent workers against (individual) dismissal Specific requirements for collective dismissal Regulation on temporary forms of employment
OECD countries
Australia 1.94 1.57 2.88 1.04
Austria 2.44 2.12 3.25 2.17
Belgium 2.99 2.14 5.13 2.42
Canada 1.51 0.92 2.97 0.21
Chile 1.80 2.53 0.00 2.42
Czech Republic 2.66 2.87 2.13 2.13
Denmark 2.32 2.10 2.88 1.79
Estonia 2.07 1.74 2.88 3.04
Finland 2.17 2.38 1.63 1.88
France 2.82 2.60 3.38 3.75
Germany 2.84 2.53 3.63 1.75
Greece 2.41 2.07 3.25 2.92
Hungary 2.07 1.45 3.63 2.00
Iceland 2.46 2.04 3.50 1.29
Ireland 2.07 1.50 3.50 1.21
Israel 2.22 2.35 1.88 1.58
Italy 2.89 2.55 3.75 2.71
Japan 2.09 1.62 3.25 1.25
Korea 2.17 2.29 1.88 2.54
Luxembourg 2.74 2.28 3.88 3.83
Mexico 2.62 1.91 4.38 2.29
Netherlands 2.94 2.84 3.19 1.17
New Zealand 1.01 1.41 0.00 0.92

And then I wondered about just how the unemployment rates of the two countries had compared.

denmark U

At least for the last 15 years, our unemployment rate has hardly ever been higher than Denmark’s.

And what of the share of the population in employment.  There the difference in recent years is quite startling, and all in favour of New Zealand.  The sustained fall since 2007 in the Danish share of the population that is employed is among the largest in the OECD, matched only by Greece, Ireland and Spain.

denmark E

Of course, the recent employment (and unemployment outcomes) aren’t just the result of employment protection legislation and active labour market policies.  Demand is an issue too, and by pegging to the euro Denmark gave up the ability to use monetary policy to support demand (and the euro area authorities have largely exhausted their capacity).  I guess the Danish unemployment rate isn’t too bad, but I wasn’t quite sure what the Danish labour market experience had to offer that should attract New Zealand.

I imagine that life on the unemployment benefit is a bit more pleasant in Denmark than in New Zealand, but it isn’t obvious that the Danish structure, as a package, is producing, over time, better outcomes than what we have here.  And their model is vastly more expensive, and more heavily regulated, consistent (of course) with Denmark’s position as the OECD country with the third largest share of government spending as a per cent of GDP (57 per cent).  New Zealand, by contrast, has total government spending of around 41 per cent of GDP

Perhaps more regulation and more spending was Robertson’s point.  I guess we have elections to debate such preferences, but it seems a stretch to believe it would be an approach that would make our labour market function better.  It isn’t obvious Denmark’s does.