Bond market fairy tales part 1

In a recent post I argued that the days when budget deficits mattered because of concerns about default are over. In 2010 it briefly looked as if deficits could be so large that default was a real possibility, but we now know that was never true for the US and UK, and within the Eurozone it was only true for Greece, and since then austerity has (unfortunately) brought deficits down substantially. In most countries deficits are now around sustainable levels, by which I mean that they can be financed and sustained at close to current tax rates and spending regimes. 

Which raises the question, why isn’t this common knowledge? Why in mediamacro do people act as if we were still in 2010? In this respect BBC journalist Robert Peston has an interesting post. Robert Peston is no fool, and his coverage of banking issues in particular is rightly famous in the UK. In his post, he notes correctly that there is a huge gap between the amount of austerity planned by Conservative and Labour after 2015. Let me quote what he says next.

“And here, of course, is where we need to ask Mr Market what he thinks of all this….The Tory view is that those [low] interest rates can only be locked in if the government continues in remorseless fashion to shrink the state and net debt. What Labour would point out is that countries in a bit of a fiscal and economic mess and currently refusing to wear the hairshirt that the European Commission thinks necessary, such as Italy and France, are also borrowing remarkably cheaply."

So what Mr. Market should tell Robert Peston at this point is that France can borrow more cheaply than the UK not because the French government is more credible and less likely to default - these are no longer important issues. The reason is that expected future short rates in France are lower as a result of the Eurozone recession. This means that because the Conservatives will cut back on spending more (than Labour), this will tend to reduce demand and output more, which in turn will mean expected future short rates will be a little lower under the Conservatives than Labour (as monetary policy tries to undo the impact of greater austerity). What Mr. Market actually told Robert Peston is as follows:

"And here is where Mr Market may be capricious, according to my pals in the bond market. They say the UK's creditors would probably be forgiving and tolerant of George Osborne borrowing more than he currently says he wishes to do, in that his record of reducing Whitehall spending by £35bn since taking office in 2010 has earned him his austerity proficiency badge. But Ed Balls has never been chancellor, although he was the power behind Gordon Brown when he ran the Treasury and much of the country, both in the lean years from 1997 to 2000 and the big spending Labour years thereafter.

So Mr Balls has yet to prove, investors say, that he can shrink as well as grow the apparatus of the state.”

What Robert Peston's pals in the bond market seem to be telling him (assuming that nothing was lost in translation) is that it is all about Labour's lack of credibility at being able to shrink the state. My immediate reaction: ?!?!? I have two problems.

1) Why the talk about credibility? Talking about credibility makes sense if we are worrying about default, but there is no chance Ed Balls is going to choose to default. You might worry that Labour will not cut the deficit by as much as they plan, which will intensify the mechanism working through monetary policy that I outlined earlier. If that is what his pals meant, why didn't they say this, and why does that involve the markets being capricious?

2) What is this about shrinking the apparatus of the state? Shrinking the deficit yes. But in what world does the return on bonds depend on the size of the state?

So it seems that my understanding of how the bond markets work is worlds apart from the understanding of Robert Peston's pals. I suspect that for mediamacro there really is no choice here: why would you believe an academic economist in their little old ivory tower rather than the guys who are directly in touch with the markets you are trying to understand. The fact the explanation they give you could have been drafted by someone in No.11 Downing Street (the UK Chancellor's residence) just suggests that George Osborne is in tune with financial realities.

Part 2 of this post will be why this logic is wrong.

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Ditulis oleh AndreSurbakti pada tanggal Kamis, 11 Desember 2014