“Inflating the money supply now would only aggravate the situation," Paul Volcker, Former chairman of US Federal Reserve.
Stagflation combines the worst extremes of a deflationary bust with an inflationary boom. Parts of the global economy risk entering a phase of stagflation - and Brexit could make the UK an early victim. Metaphorically speaking, if economic growth is the amount of porridge and inflation is its temperature, Goldilocks is being offered a portion that is both too small and too hot.
Stagflation occurred in a number of countries in the 1970s. Although inflation in those days reached double digits, the modern ‘trickle-down’ kind1 is more moderate. But at the zero-bound, it has the same effect in that it pushes both growth and returns into negative territory in real terms. Should loose monetary policies be joined by loose fiscal ones, inflation is likely to heat up, becoming a threat to investors chasing yields and growth.
In an earlier article on economic tides, I mentioned that I expect an interim phase of stagflation, between the current deflationary wave and a future tsunami of inflation. I believe the conditions that would facilitate such a transition are falling into place, although this form of stagflation will be weaker than that of the 1970s. I also believe that stagflation is more likely than secular stagnation. To make my general case, I paint with a broad brush while penciling the UK as a special case. I will focus on growth and inflation, as well as on issues of supply and demand. Let’s start with a brief summary of the current economic climate (as if we need reminding).
Global economic growth remains muted. The IMF expects it to come in at roughly 3% in 2016, with developed economies clocking in at just 1.8%. The main cause of this sluggishness is the debt overhang, which is holding back growth. Despite low (and sometimes even negative) interest rates, which supposedly create a favorable investment climate, businesses have not increased spending. Capital expenditure (CAPEX) is a supply issue, to which I will return later. McKinsey stated in a much-cited report that there are few signs of deleveraging2. Debt levels have generally increased as a percentage of GDP, often above 100%. For the US, the chart below shows that growth in debt exceeded GDP growth from 1981 to 2010 and that, after a brief period of deleveraging, they are now equal. However, the Congressional Budget Office expects the budget deficit to grow again, after six years of decline, potentially setting up acceleration in the growth of government debt3:
Source: St. Louis Fed
In its July update, the IMF added the following caveat: “the extent of uncertainty complicates the already difficult task of macroeconomic forecasting—more negative outcomes are a distinct possibility”. That clearly applies to the UK after its Brexit vote. Why has Brexit made the UK more vulnerable to stagflation? First, the uncertainty involved in the multi-year “divorce proceedings” deters consumers, entrepreneurs, and investors from making significant commitments. This affects both supply and demand and ultimately lowers growth, possibly into recessionary levels.
Consensus estimates show that GDP growth is expected to drop to 1.5% in 2016 and 0.5% in 2017, down from the 2.3%, respectively 2.4%, estimated a year ago.5 Our own forecast for the UK is negative at -0.9% for 2017. Second, the decline in sterling makes imported goods and services more expensive and thus risks the normal type of inflation.[5] Consensus UK inflation expectations for 2016 have dropped from 1.6% a year ago to 0.75% at the time of writing. But the 2017 expectation at 1.9% has remained the same as a year ago.6 In the most recent update for June, CPI/RPI data saw an uptick. Based on PriceStats’ online prices, this could accelerate:
Source: State Street
Crucially, measures to counter the negative impact of Brexit, which are likely to involve a combined fiscal (Treasury) and monetary (Bank of England) approach, risk aggravating the multiple deficits situation of the UK. This is already reflected in the recent depreciation of the pound, which, as mentioned earlier, increases import prices. A higher credit-risk premium is also associated with such debasement. Why? Because, like Japan, the UK is at risk of only being able to repay its debts by printing more money. But, unlike Japan, the UK still has a significant percentage of foreign creditors who are demanding more compensation for such risk. When S&P downgraded the UK’s sovereign rating from AAA to AA last month, it said that the UK’s “gross external funding needs (as a share of current account receipts and usable foreign exchange reserves) is the biggest among all 131 sovereigns rated by S&P Global Ratings. At over 800%, this ratio stands at over twice the level of the G7 runners-up (US and France are under 320%).” This can morph into the vicious circle of a weakening currency and higher credit risk, with the latter pressuring growth as part of higher interest rates.
Despite the recent disappointing GDP numbers, the US growth-versus-inflation picture is more benign. However, the risk of stagflation is not only increasing because of base effects (the fading impact of lower commodity prices). It is also rising as the money supply increases relative to the unemployment rate (red line). This potentially drives up inflation (blue line) and particularly that of wages (green line):
Source: Bloomberg
In fact, low unemployment and wage pressures also highlight the flaw in the competing hypothesis of secular stagnation, as suggested by former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, among others. But first, some background on this debate.
Ever since the financial crisis started, economists have been debating its causes and consequences. While there is agreement that the recovery is disappointing and uneven, the debate centers on whether the problem of a weak economy lies on the supply or demand side of the equation. In other words, is the problem production or consumption? Proponents of secular stagnation argue that the inability to reach full employment stems from weak aggregate demand. They also state that interest rates cannot be lowered sufficiently (as they are constrained by the ‘lower zero bound’) to generate the level of demand (i.e. economic growth) required to achieve full employment. Technically, the theoretical interest rate that would allow the US economy to reach full employment under current circumstances is negative. However, the Fed is not (yet) willing to adopt negative interest rates. So the fact that interest rates are zero bound means that aggregate demand will continue to fall short of supply. This effectively prevents the economy from reaching full employment (or generating demand/inflation, for that matter). But despite below-trend growth, US unemployment is very low (at 4.7%), which suggests almost full employment. This anomaly shows a weakness in the secular-stagnation narrative, at least for the US.
So, what about the supply side? Again, this argument concerns the circumstances under which goods and services are produced (rather than consumed). In a macro sense, supply aspects like taxes and trade barriers can obstruct production. However, a specific micro look at the decline in productivity is more relevant for our stagflation case. Some argue that productivity decline is illusory and due to a flawed measurement of production that is no longer appropriate for the modern service and IT sectors. Others acknowledge the decline is real and provide a number of arguments. Low real wages, for example, allow companies to keep employees on their payrolls for longer. Disappointing CAPEX spending implies that machines and tools are not upgraded or replaced, and this can be detrimental to worker productivity. Then there are those who view the decline structurally. Most prominent is Professor Robert Gordon, who suggests that the golden era of innovation and technological breakthroughs that followed the industrial revolution is simply over. He places his supply-side hypothesis of lower growth in a long-term, mean-reversion context:
Source: Screenshot from TED talk
Personally, I think there are both demand and supply issues at work. In any case, they culminate in the phenomenon associated with stagflation that causes the detrimental investment impact. The following are rough estimates. Over the decade from 1970 to 1980, the average annual yield in a ‘mixed’ portfolio of 50% US stocks and 50% 10-year US Treasuries was approximately 10%. That yield was made up of the equally weighted earnings and bond yields. In the US, however, that decade saw average real growth of -10%. This had an impact on equity returns, which went nowhere in nominal terms and down in real terms.
Source: Macro Trends
A number of other European countries suffer from similar, albeit less extreme, circumstances to those in the UK. For example, a Swiss investor currently earns a yield of slightly over 2% on a 50/50 portfolio. Although real growth is expected to amount to 1%, that does not leave much of a buffer if growth falters or inflation jumps. A French investor is worse off. She is also looking at a combined earnings/bond yield of 2%, but real growth is expected to come in at -0.2% over the next two years.
In short, the portions of economic ‘porridge’ currently on the menu in the UK and other countries are too small and too hot. Whether they will actually be served as such remains to be seen. The surge in populism, embodied by politicians such as Donald Trump (US), Marine Le Pen (France), Beppe Grillo (Italy) and Geert Wilders (Netherlands) is a worry in that regard. A number of their (centrally planned) policies, which are inspired by inequality, protectionism, and other anti-globalization themes, are likely to be detrimental to the growth/inflation balance. These include raising minimum wages, progressively taxing income and profits, increasing trade tariffs, introducing capital controls, and closing borders. If these are financed by monetary policies, they could become a dangerous cocktail. In reference to my earlier article on “helicopter money,” the threat facing the central planners is not only that the level of inflation is quickly too high for comfort at the zero bound, while growth remains too vulnerable to hike rates. It is also that the type of inflation is unhealthy because it is likely to be caused by fear of further debasement, as money printing is judged to be the only remedy for the debt burden.
On that note, it is perhaps useful to distinguish between:
Capital markets, which deal in intangible (financial) assets and consist mostly of virtual and electronic exchanges. These constitute the mental domain of our economic system; and
Real economies, which deal in tangible (physical) assets and consist of factories, offices, machines, railroads and so on. These constitute the material domain of our economic system.
Money connects these domains and facilitates transactions within and across the two. Next, if there are doubts about current measurements of growth and productivity, could one not also question current inflation measurements? An obvious area to look at is the inflation in financial assets that resulted from quantitative easing (QE) by central banks in order to create the wealth effect. This trickled down into the real economy, but not in a universally beneficial way. For example, in a recent book, Adair Turner points to the excessive amounts invested in real estate, where prices in many cases now exceed the peaks of 2006. The result is that offices and houses have become prohibitively expensive in a growing number of countries, particularly for small companies and first-time buyers. Wealth creation leads to ‘stealth’ inflation. Or, even better, ‘trickle-down’ inflation. Other centrally planned policies are often expensive in a similar indirect vein, exemplified in growing health-care and education costs. The reason that inflation has so far been contained in the capital markets and has only partly trickled down is that it consists of financial inflation achieved by way of QE. That will change once central banks create money directly to fund fiscal expansion.
To conclude, increased amounts of debt were spent on financial assets (e.g. bank bail-outs) rather than on pro-growth (e.g. infrastructure) investments in the real economy. In addition, QE supported the wealth effect but had the detrimental consequence of trickle-down inflation. Overall it means that economic growth and investment returns were borrowed from, and thus are likely to be lower in, the future, whereas inflation is likely to be higher. We know what central planners should do, first and foremost, to improve current economic conditions. Namely, to implement structural reforms which promote accountability and transparency in sectors and markets. Abenomics, for example, has unfortunately shown, they are reluctant to engage in this ‘third arrow’, mainly because it is politically painful. Instead, they resort to increasing the firepower of more easily available weapons. However, any double-barreled bazooka of monetary and fiscal policies will turn the trickle- down inflation into a flood. It eventually risks stimulating the wrong type of cycle, namely the vicious one of debasement and default. In other words, the type of inflation of our zero-bound stagflation ultimately reflects a credit-risk premium. Although the circumstances are completely different from the 1970s, Volcker’s warning is no less relevant. We don’t need hyperinflation for stagflation. Zero-bound stagflation just means that growth and returns come in below inflation, all in single digits. Investors should select/overweight gold, inflation-linked bonds, real estate and selectively stocks (e.g. retail/consumer staples).
Goldilocks liked it ‘just right’. But she has now left the building. Too bearish? Remember, the porridge was always intended for the bears.
References:
[1] My use of this term, detailed later, was inspired by the concept of “trickle-down economics”
[2] The Centre for Economic Policy Research came to the same conclusion.
[3] Here is an informative report on fiscal imbalances.
[4] Source: Bloomberg. Note: the IMF is slightly more optimistic, surprising in light of its pre-referendum gloom and doom forecast regarding Brexit.
[5] As an aside, workers could be compensated for such inflation via higher wages. In turn, the question is if what remains of the pie after Brexit is sufficiently large to generate revenue growth that outpaces wage inflation. If not, then companies will go out of business and unemployment will rise.
[6] Source: Bloomberg.
