Comments 13

跑题的欧洲紧缩之争

May 8, 2013 Daniel Gros

发自布鲁塞尔——欧元区危机最明显的症状就是其极高且不断变动的风险溢价，而一众欧元区外围国家则必须为其公共债务支付这种风险溢价。此外，美国经济学家卡门·莱因哈特（Carmen Reinhart）和肯尼斯·罗格夫（Kenneth Rogoff ）在一篇颇有影响的论文指出当一国的公共债务上升到GDP的90%以上时，其经济增长会急剧下降。所以解决该危机的政策方案似乎也很简单：紧缩。必须削减财政赤字以降低负债务水平。

但关于紧缩和高水平公共债务成本的讨论忽略了一个重点：欠外国人的公共债务不同于欠本国公民的债务。外国人无法投票支持提高税收或降低支出以减轻债务。此外，就国内债务而言，高利率或高风险溢价只不过是导致更多的国内再分配（从纳税人到债券持有者）。相比之下，对外债而言，高利率会导致国家整体的财富流失，因为在这种情况下政府必须把资源转移到国外，而这通常需要结合汇率贬值与国内支出削减。

外债和内债的区别在欧元危机期间显得尤其重要，因为欧元区成员国无法像其它国家一样通过贬值货币来提高出口，从而减轻外债。而事实证明欧元危机其实并不是主权危机，而是外债危机。

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Daniel Gros

Writing for PS since 2005
117 Commentaries

Daniel Gros is Director of the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies. He has worked for the International Monetary Fund, and served as an economic adviser to the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the French prime minister and finance minister. He is the editor of Economie Internationale and International Finance.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 20 in all 20 Comments on this article

Paul Peters May 21, 2013

Odd, i thought this whole "austerity" discussion was to raise the impression that governments were financially accountable.. a sort of Sarbanes Oxley, at least in whatever is being said to the press, so that thousands of high-frequency trading systems would not jump onto these countries and try speculate against them because these systems are too stupid to deal with any sort of nuance and ambiguity and have been projecting the implicit assumptions that underly algorithmic trading into an enforcing enactment which reduces the public image of government leaders to a sort of cartoonified version of themselves. Trapped.
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Ralph Musgrave May 15, 2013

The distinction between foreign and domestically held public debt was pointed out by R.A.Musgrave in the American Economic Review in 1939. Smart lot we Musgraves :-)
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Frank Aten May 15, 2013

Seems to me risk premiums fell for the periphery do to bank buying and ECB taking debt in as collateral for repo not because investors feel things are "ok". I don't care if the threshold is 90% more or less depending on particular macros the debt levels (used for mal-investment) are absolutely a growth stunter. Soon governments won't be able to afford to provide the"essential" services for which is there sole purpose of existence.
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Gerald Silverberg May 12, 2013

The distinction between foreign and domestic debt is indeed crucial for financial sustainability.

However, I'm surprised Gros is still repeating the Reinhart-Rogoff canard about a 90% debt ratio threshold. Even without their egregious mistakes, this was always statistical nonsense (see my blog http://silverberg-on-meltdown-economics.blogspot.co.at/2013/04/the-reinhart-rogoff-dragon-revisited.html).
- Jose araujo May 13, 2013
  
  On a monetary union, with free capital flow like the EU, there is no distinction between domestic and European debt.
  
  Why would a Portuguese or Greek national require less guarantees then a German or Dutch national for having his money in Portugal or Greece? If they do, the rational reaction is to put his money in Germany or Holland, isn't it?
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tony smith May 9, 2013

"But austerity can never be self-defeating for the external adjustment. On the contrary, the larger the fall in domestic demand in response to a cut in government expenditure, the more imports will fall and the stronger the improvement in the current account – and thus ultimately the reduction in the risk premium – will be."

This is a deeply flawed analysis that doesnt belong on the otherwise excellent project-syndicate website.

Austerity can be self-defeating if it inflicts medium/long-run damage to the countrys economy and productive capacity. Austerity has meant for the likes of Spain and Greece, a talent drain out of the country, the dismantling of public institutions and the breakdown of communities that will have long lasting effects. Although, as you correctly say a collapse in imports will mean a short-term improvement in the external debt position it comes at a great cost that will have long-term repercussions.

Furthermore, the predominant factor that led to lower yields on periphery countries debt was the LTRO operation not the current accounts of those countries.
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Mark Pitts May 8, 2013

Great article. Great insights.
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Ernest Dautovic May 8, 2013

why then the U.S. did not have a sovereign debt crisis after the subprime malaise caused by the twin deficits? And what would be the mechanism linking the private sector current account deficits with the sovereign spreads? In the end it wasn't the sovereign that were trading. However, we see that after the last summer the ECB decided for the OMT the spreads fell down, and Portugal this week got access to the markets again.

Moreover in a region where countries are trading among themselves, the current account story would imply that none of them has ever to be in the minus territory otherwise she risks the market punishment. But if they trade among themselves someone has to have positive current account and someone negative current account, unless they all even out at zero. Funny guy Gross, luckily enough he is not teaching anywhere. Unfortunately though he has influence on EU politicians mindset.
- Carol Maczinsky May 11, 2013
  
  The United States is a nation state. Eurozone is a coalition of nation states with a pooled currency and when nations do not meet their agreed targets they automatically harm the other members states and live off their pockets. In the past we had no enforcement of discipline. Now the situation of the crisis forces greater discipline as the partz of unaccounted spending is over and thus the US armchair professors come and denounce European "austerity", a misleading word for compliance with what a nation agreed upon. Of course austerity is no fun but either you eat your piece of cake or you take from others (with whom you bought the cake). The trolls from the US who propose that the others also take your piece of cake are safe to ignore.
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Dan Adams May 8, 2013

R&R data wasn't falsified. It was selective which economists knew pretty quickly and is standard procedure in all science and social science.

However this paper isn't really about R&R. The argument about debt here specifically foreign debt is valid.
- P. Foofootos May 8, 2013
  
  Yes, the argument about foreign debt is valid.
  
  OTOH the reduction in current account deficits wasn't achieved through higher competitiveness, or through higher consumption from core European countries: it was achieved by "starving" (without quotes in some cases) in periphery countries. I wouldn't call that progress exactly. Not to mention that this is something everyone new, there are many articles, sometimes from more than 3-4 years ago, discussing the difference between foreign and internal debt, especially from economists that have studied Japan in depth.
  
  P.S. selecting and binning data specifically to suit a pre-defined hypothesis and threshold, IS a form of falsification. A paper in the medical field for example that deliberately fixed the data to say that a given condition was worsened by such and such factors, while in reality the condition was improved, just at a slower pace because of this factors, would be retracted.
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michael L May 8, 2013

It seems that Daniel Gros has completely missed the true reason behind the falling spreads on PIIGS govvies:
The promise from Draghi to do whatever it takes to save the Euro, the OMT programme, and the general perception that the ECB perhaps is a credible Lender of Last Resort after all.

The massive suffering imposed by the policymakers on the population of the PIIGS with mass-unemployment, falling GDP, negative debt-dynamics, bankruptcies, etc. is really a crime against humanity. Of course the current account will turn positive when aggregate demand is deficient enough. This it not something to be happy about, but to deplore.

But I bet that Mr Gros himself has not been forced to endure much suffering during this dramatic period of destruction. Other people will do the suffering...
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Jose araujo May 8, 2013

Just the mention to R&R proves again that Gros is an ignorant, and that its because of people like him, that worked in IMF and advisory for the European Commission that Europe is like it is.

Yes Gros and others like him make any debate irrelevant, there is no limit to stupidity and Gros proves it.
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P. Foofootos May 8, 2013

Reinhart - Rogoff? Really? Is the economics profession so anti-scientific that it stoops so low as to cite irreproducible research with falsified data?

I'm sorry but that is why economics will always be seen as a faith-based (not religious, but political, small difference) black art rather than science... this is just a disgrace in the eyes of any scientist or engineer.
- Ralph Musgrave May 15, 2013
  
  Re Rogoff etc, members of every profession invariably scratch each other’s backs. Everyone knows Rogoff is incompetent. But his fellow academic economists will be the last to admit it.
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- P. Foofootos May 8, 2013
  
  Wrong, there are literally HUNDREDS of papers coming to the same conclusions in that case! I'd say that the result is pretty much reproducible and consistent. This paper didn't just have statistical errors: it selectively used data, and processed them in such a way as to support a conclusion, that not just wasn't supported by the full dataset, but was completely reversed!!
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- Mark Pitts May 8, 2013
  
  Similarly, we must conclude that the whole idea of climate change has been debinked due to their statistical errors. Right?
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- Jose araujo May 8, 2013
  
  Daniel Gros is a disgrace to the Economist Class, for sure in Engineering and natural sciences are also full of incopetent people in high places.
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Flint O'Neil May 8, 2013

Thank-god for this. I thought I was the only one who shared this opinion on the Austerity debate.
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http://prosyn.org/DgFq2q5/zh;

跑题的欧洲紧缩之争

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