Fwd: Macroperu El Pronostico de K.Rogoff

de bruno seminario

En los primeros meses de este año, volvió a dominar la dinámica de los mercados financieros una visión complaciente del futuro; el cambio de actitud se registró en el mes de enero, y, se consolidó cuando se anunció el nuevo plan de erscatee financiero del gobierno de Estados Unidos , el retorno a la normalidad en el mercado de crédito, y, la ateración en la política monetearia en Estados Unidos. Como consecuencia, el capital que había buscado  un refugio seguro en los bonos del tesoro estadounidenses, se aplicó a comprar distintos instrumentos financieros: acciones, materias primas, papeles de economías emergentes, etc. Pero, ¿posee este optimismo una base sólida ?  Los argumentos que dan  quienes postulan esta visión oprimista de los acontecimientos son bastante débiles. Por ejemplo, dicen que  ha disminuido la tasa de descenso en el  ritmo de actividad económica, pero omiten mencionar que aún es negativa. Además, en todas recesión  se rgesitra un desarrollo similar. Sin embrago, este proceso poco dice sobre la fecha en que se regsitrará la recuperación de la economía. ¿Cual es el significado de la palabra recuperar? Hago la pregunta porque los optimsiatas tienen un cocncepción bastante particular sobre el significado del término.

The "New Normal" for Growth

by Kenneth Rogoff

Cambridge – Markets are bubbling over signs of "green shoots" in the global economy. An increasing number of investors see a strong rebound coming, first in China, then in the United States, and then in Europe and the rest of the world. Even the horrible growth numbers of the last couple quarters don't seem to discourage this optimistic thinking. The deeper the plunge, the stronger the rebound, some analysts say.

Perhaps these optimists are right. But how strong an expansion can one reasonably expect when the worst is finally over? Is the "new normal" going to be the same as the "old normal" of the boom years from 2002 to 2007?

I have trouble seeing how the US and China, the main engines of global growth for two decades, can avoid settling on a notably lower average growth rate than they enjoyed before the crisis.

Let's start with the US, the epicenter of the financial crisis, and still the most important economy in the world. In the best of worlds, the US financial sector will emerge from the crisis smaller and more heavily regulated. Not to worry, some economists, say. The US grew rapidly in the 1950's and 1960's with a relatively heavily regulated banking system. Why not again?

Sure, but the early post-war financial sector wasn't called upon in those days to support nearly as diverse and sophisticated an economy as it is today. If authorities set the clock back several decades on banking regulation, can we be so sure they will not also set the clock back on income?

US consumption, the single biggest driver of global growth, is surely headed to a lower level, on the back of weak housing prices, rising unemployment, and falling pension wealth. During the boom, US consumption rose to more than 70% of GDP. In the wake of the crisis, it could fall down towards 60%.

And what about the major political shift the US has experienced? Tired of go-go growth, voters now look for more attention to addressing environmental concerns, health-care issues, and income inequality. But achieving these laudable goals will be expensive, coming on top of the giant budget deficits the US is running to counter the financial crisis. Higher taxes and greater regulation cannot be good for growth.

True, there is room to run the government more efficiently, especially in the areas of education and health care. But will these savings be enough to offset the burden of a significantly larger overall government? I hope so, and certainly the Obama administration is a breath of fresh air after the stunning ineptness of the Bush-Cheney years. But governments all over the world are always convinced that their expansions can be substantially financed by efficiency gains, and that dream usually proves chimerical.

Chinese growth is set to slow over the longer run, as well. Even before the financial crisis, it was clear that China could not continue indefinitely on its growth trajectory of 10% or more. Environmental and water problems were mounting. It was becoming increasingly clear that as China continued to grow faster than almost anyone else, the rest of the world's import capacity (and tolerance) could not keep up with China's export machine. China was becoming too big.

With the financial crisis, the Chinese economy's necessary adjustment towards more domestic consumption has become far more urgent. True, even as exports have collapsed, the government has managed to prop up growth with a huge spending and credit expansion. But, while necessary, this strategy threatens to upset the delicate balance between private- and public-sector expansion that has underpinned China's expansion so far. The growing role of the government, and the shrinking role of the private sector, almost surely portends slower growth later this decade.

Europe, too, faces challenges, and not just from the fact that it now has the worst downturn of the world's major economic regions, with Germany's government warning of a surreal 6% decline in GDP for 2009. The ongoing financial crisis will almost surely slow the integration of the accession countries in Central and Eastern Europe, whose young populations are the single most dynamic source of growth in Europe today.

Not all regions will necessarily have slower economic expansion in the decade ahead. Assuming continuing reforms in countries such as Brazil, India, South Africa, and Russia, emerging markets could well fill some of the growth gap left by the largest economies. But, in all likelihood, after years of steadily revising up its estimates of trend global growth, the International Monetary Fund will start revising them down.  

Even after the crisis, global growth is almost certain to remain lower than the pre-crisis boom years for some time to come. This change may be good for the environment, for income equality, and for stability. Governments are right to worry about the quality of growth, not just its speed. But when it comes to tax and profit estimates, investors and politicians need to reorient themselves to the "new normal" – lower average growth.

Kenneth Rogoff is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and was formerly chief economist at the IMF.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009.
www.project-syndicate.org

by Kenneth Rogoff

Cambridge – Markets are bubbling over signs of "green shoots" in the global economy. An increasing number of investors see a strong rebound coming, first in China, then in the United States, and then in Europe and the rest of the world. Even the horrible growth numbers of the last couple quarters don't seem to discourage this optimistic thinking. The deeper the plunge, the stronger the rebound, some analysts say.

Perhaps these optimists are right. But how strong an expansion can one reasonably expect when the worst is finally over? Is the "new normal" going to be the same as the "old normal" of the boom years from 2002 to 2007?

I have trouble seeing how the US and China, the main engines of global growth for two decades, can avoid settling on a notably lower average growth rate than they enjoyed before the crisis.

Let's start with the US, the epicenter of the financial crisis, and still the most important economy in the world. In the best of worlds, the US financial sector will emerge from the crisis smaller and more heavily regulated. Not to worry, some economists, say. The US grew rapidly in the 1950's and 1960's with a relatively heavily regulated banking system. Why not again?

Sure, but the early post-war financial sector wasn't called upon in those days to support nearly as diverse and sophisticated an economy as it is today. If authorities set the clock back several decades on banking regulation, can we be so sure they will not also set the clock back on income?

US consumption, the single biggest driver of global growth, is surely headed to a lower level, on the back of weak housing prices, rising unemployment, and falling pension wealth. During the boom, US consumption rose to more than 70% of GDP. In the wake of the crisis, it could fall down towards 60%.

And what about the major political shift the US has experienced? Tired of go-go growth, voters now look for more attention to addressing environmental concerns, health-care issues, and income inequality. But achieving these laudable goals will be expensive, coming on top of the giant budget deficits the US is running to counter the financial crisis. Higher taxes and greater regulation cannot be good for growth.

True, there is room to run the government more efficiently, especially in the areas of education and health care. But will these savings be enough to offset the burden of a significantly larger overall government? I hope so, and certainly the Obama administration is a breath of fresh air after the stunning ineptness of the Bush-Cheney years. But governments all over the world are always convinced that their expansions can be substantially financed by efficiency gains, and that dream usually proves chimerical.

Chinese growth is set to slow over the longer run, as well. Even before the financial crisis, it was clear that China could not continue indefinitely on its growth trajectory of 10% or more. Environmental and water problems were mounting. It was becoming increasingly clear that as China continued to grow faster than almost anyone else, the rest of the world's import capacity (and tolerance) could not keep up with China's export machine. China was becoming too big.

With the financial crisis, the Chinese economy's necessary adjustment towards more domestic consumption has become far more urgent. True, even as exports have collapsed, the government has managed to prop up growth with a huge spending and credit expansion. But, while necessary, this strategy threatens to upset the delicate balance between private- and public-sector expansion that has underpinned China's expansion so far. The growing role of the government, and the shrinking role of the private sector, almost surely portends slower growth later this decade.

Europe, too, faces challenges, and not just from the fact that it now has the worst downturn of the world's major economic regions, with Germany's government warning of a surreal 6% decline in GDP for 2009. The ongoing financial crisis will almost surely slow the integration of the accession countries in Central and Eastern Europe, whose young populations are the single most dynamic source of growth in Europe today.

Not all regions will necessarily have slower economic expansion in the decade ahead. Assuming continuing reforms in countries such as Brazil, India, South Africa, and Russia, emerging markets could well fill some of the growth gap left by the largest economies. But, in all likelihood, after years of steadily revising up its estimates of trend global growth, the International Monetary Fund will start revising them down.  

Even after the crisis, global growth is almost certain to remain lower than the pre-crisis boom years for some time to come. This change may be good for the environment, for income equality, and for stability. Governments are right to worry about the quality of growth, not just its speed. But when it comes to tax and profit estimates, investors and politicians need to reorient themselves to the "new normal" – lower average growth.

Kenneth Rogoff is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and was formerly chief economist at the IMF.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009.
www.project-syndicate.org

__._

FRANCE:The Almighty Renminbi?

The Almighty Renminbi?

By NOURIEL ROUBINI

Published: May 13, 2009

THE 19th century was dominated by the British Empire, the 20th century by the United States. We may now be entering the Asian century, dominated by a rising China and its currency. While the dollar’s status as the major reserve currency will not vanish overnight, we can no longer take it for granted. Sooner than we think, the dollar may be challenged by other currencies, most likely the Chinese renminbi. This would have serious costs for America, as our ability to finance our budget and trade deficits cheaply would disappear.

Gary Taxali

Related

Op-Ed Contributor: China’s Heart of Gold (May 14, 2009)

Print Version of Op-Art (May 14, 2009)

Traditionally, empires that hold the global reserve currency are also net foreign creditors and net lenders. The British Empire declined — and the pound lost its status as the main global reserve currency — when Britain became a net debtor and a net borrower in World War II. Today, the United States is in a similar position. It is running huge budget and trade deficits, and is relying on the kindness of restless foreign creditors who are starting to feel uneasy about accumulating even more dollar assets. The resulting downfall of the dollar may be only a matter of time.

But what could replace it? The British pound, the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc remain minor reserve currencies, as those countries are not major powers. Gold is still a barbaric relic whose value rises only when inflation is high. The euro is hobbled by concerns about the long-term viability of the European Monetary Union. That leaves the renminbi.

China is a creditor country with large current account surpluses, a small budget deficit, much lower public debt as a share of G.D.P. than the United States, and solid growth. And it is already taking steps toward challenging the supremacy of the dollar. Beijing has called for a new international reserve currency in the form of the International Monetary Fund’s special drawing rights (a basket of dollars, euros, pounds and yen). China will soon want to see its own currency included in the basket, as well as the renminbi used as a means of payment in bilateral trade.

At the moment, though, the renminbi is far from ready to achieve reserve currency status. China would first have to ease restrictions on money entering and leaving the country, make its currency fully convertible for such transactions, continue its domestic financial reforms and make its bond markets more liquid. It would take a long time for the renminbi to become a reserve currency, but it could happen. China has already flexed its muscle by setting up currency swaps with several countries (including Argentina, Belarus and Indonesia) and by letting institutions in Hong Kong issue bonds denominated in renminbi, a first step toward creating a deep domestic and international market for its currency.

If China and other countries were to diversify their reserve holdings away from the dollar — and they eventually will — the United States would suffer. We have reaped significant financial benefits from having the dollar as the reserve currency. In particular, the strong market for the dollar allows Americans to borrow at better rates. We have thus been able to finance larger deficits for longer and at lower interest rates, as foreign demand has kept Treasury yields low. We have been able to issue debt in our own currency rather than a foreign one, thus shifting the losses of a fall in the value of the dollar to our creditors. Having commodities priced in dollars has also meant that a fall in the dollar’s value doesn’t lead to a rise in the price of imports.

Now, imagine a world in which China could borrow and lend internationally in its own currency. The renminbi, rather than the dollar, could eventually become a means of payment in trade and a unit of account in pricing imports and exports, as well as a store of value for wealth by international investors. Americans would pay the price. We would have to shell out more for imported goods, and interest rates on both private and public debt would rise. The higher private cost of borrowing could lead to weaker consumption and investment, and slower growth.

This decline of the dollar might take more than a decade, but it could happen even sooner if we do not get our financial house in order. The United States must rein in spending and borrowing, and pursue growth that is not based on asset and credit bubbles. For the last two decades America has been spending more than its income, increasing its foreign liabilities and amassing debts that have become unsustainable. A system where the dollar was the major global currency allowed us to prolong reckless borrowing.

Now that the dollar’s position is no longer so secure, we need to shift our priorities. This will entail investing in our crumbling infrastructure, alternative and renewable resources and productive human capital — rather than in unnecessary housing and toxic financial innovation. This will be the only way to slow down the decline of the dollar, and sustain our influence in global affairs.

Nouriel Roubini is a professor of economics at the New York University Stern School of Business and the chairman of an economic consulting firm.

Obama Proposes a First Overhaul of Finance Rules

By STEPHEN LABATON and JACKIE CALMES

Published: May 13, 2009

WASHINGTON — In its first detailed effort to overhaul financial regulations, the Obama administration on Wednesday sought new authority over the complex financial instruments, known as derivatives, that were a major cause of the financial crisis and have gone largely unregulated for decades.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, at a banking industry meeting on Wednesday. He is seeking new regulations.

Related

Questions for Myron Scholes: Crash Course (May 17, 2009)

Times Topics: Derivatives

The administration asked Congress to move quickly on legislation that would allow federal oversight of many kinds of exotic instruments, including credit-default swaps, the insurance contracts that caused the near-collapse of the American International Group.

The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, said the measure should require swaps and other types of derivatives to be traded on exchanges or clearinghouses and backed by capital reserves, much like the capital cushions that banks must set aside in case a borrower defaults on a loan. Taken together, the rules would probably make it more expensive for issuers, dealers and buyers alike to participate in the derivatives markets.

The proposal will probably force many types of derivatives into the open, reducing the role of the so-called shadow banking system that has arisen around them.

“This financial crisis was caused in large part by significant gaps in the oversight of the markets,” Mr. Geithner said in a briefing. He said the proposal was intended to make the trading of derivatives more transparent and give regulators the ability to limit the amount of derivatives that any company can sell, or that any institution can hold.

The initiative was well received by senior Democrats in Congress with jurisdiction over the issue. The proposal had been expected, but some lawmakers, impatient with the pace of the new administration’s efforts, had begun moving ahead themselves.

Hinting at a lobbying campaign to come, Robert Pickel, the chief executive of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, a trade group, said his organization “looked forward to working with policy makers to ensure these reforms help preserve the widespread availability of swaps and other important risk management tools.”

But some in the financial industry say that regulation is inevitable. “Nobody is in a ‘just say no’ mode,” said Steven A. Elmendorf, a former aide to the House Democratic leadership who represents several major financial institutions and groups. “Everybody understands that we’ve been through a financial crisis and that change has to happen. And the only question is how the change happens.”

The administration is seeking the repeal of major portions of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, a law adopted in December 2000 that made sure that derivative instruments would remain largely unregulated.

The law came about after heavy lobbying from Wall Street and the financial industry, and was pushed hard by Democrats and Republicans alike. It was endorsed at the time by the Treasury secretary, Lawrence H. Summers, who is now President Obama’s top economic adviser.

At the time, the derivatives market was relatively small. But it soon exploded, and the face value of all derivatives contracts across the world — a measure that counts the value of a derivative’s underlying assets — outstanding at the end of last year totaled more than $680 trillion, according to the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. The market for credit-default swaps — a form of insurance that protects debtholders against default — stood around $38 trillion, according to the international swaps group. That represents the total amount of insurance that has been written on various kinds of debt, but the amount that would have to be paid out if the debt went into default is considerably less.

As the credit crisis has unfolded, trading in credit-default swaps has cooled, market participants said. The collapse of A.I.G. took a huge player out of the market and banks, hobbled by losses, have curbed their activities in the market. Still, derivatives trading desks have been profit centers at major banks recently.

The biggest banks and brokerage firms, including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, as well as major insurers, are all major players in derivatives.

Derivatives are hard to value. They are virtually hidden from investors, analysts and regulators, even though they are one of Wall Street’s biggest profit engines. They do not trade openly on public exchanges, and financial services firms disclose few details about them. The new rules are meant to change most, but not all, of that opacity.

Used properly, they can reduce or transfer risk, limit the damage from market uncertainty and make global trade easier. Airlines, food companies, insurers, exporters and many other companies use derivatives to protect themselves from sudden and unpredictable changes in financial markets like interest rate or currency movements. Used poorly, derivatives can backfire and spread risk rather than contain it.

The administration plan would not require that custom-made derivative instruments — those with unique characteristics negotiated between companies — be traded on exchanges or through clearinghouses, though standardized ones would. The plan would require the development of timely reports of trades, similar to the system for corporate bonds.

Related

Questions for Myron Scholes: Crash Course (May 17, 2009)

Times Topics: Derivatives

The letter suggested that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would play a leading role in the oversight of the market, although it would also leave important elements to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Over the years, the turf battle between those agencies contributed to the neglect of that market by government overseers.

Some lawmakers in the House and Senate have already introduced measures to regulate derivatives. But a number of members have pressed the administration to put out its own plan.

Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee that oversees the S.E.C., and Representative Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee with oversight of the commodities trading commission, released a joint statement saying, “we agree there must be strong, comprehensive and consistent regulation” of derivatives. “We will work closely together to achieve that goal,” they added.

While derivatives regulation will be a focus of some market players, of equal concern to many in the financial industry are what the Obama administration and Congress might do to regulate compensation for executives across the board, not just at institutions that have accepted federal bailout money.

The Treasury is acting on two paths. First, it plans as soon as next week to announce revised compensation rules for companies getting assistance, to make those rules conform with a law Congress passed in February that was more stringent than the Treasury’s own guidelines.

Separately, Treasury officials have just begun discussing with the Federal Reserve and the S.E.C. what the government can do industrywide — through incentives, restrictions or a mix of the two — to guard against eye-popping compensation that rewards excessive risk-taking of the sort that contributed to the current crisis.

The fear among many in the industry — and some in the administration — is that whatever limits Mr. Obama proposes, Congress will seek to add even more, in response to public anger.

In addition to the regulatory changes it is seeking, the administration is also continuing to expand its bailout programs for various industries. Mr. Geithner announced on Wednesday that the administration would provide a new round of capital assistance to smaller community banks, and would increase the amount that they can borrow from the program.

Beyond derivatives, he also said that the administration would be presenting a comprehensive proposal to overhaul the regulation of the financial system. He said a central goal would be to eliminate the ability of companies to pick the least onerous regulator.

“We need a much simpler financial oversight structure,” he said. “It’s not going to be comfortable for everybody but it’s important to do.”

AFP: SOBRE EL ALZA DE COMISIONES, KBURNEO

Cómo Ganar Mas de 3 Millones de Soles

Kurt Burneo

No, no necesita ganar la lotería sino solamente ser accionista de una AFP. El caso es que una de las cuatro AFP´s anunció para alegría de sus accionistas y mala suerte de sus afiliados que elevaría su comisión por administrar el fondo de sus afiliados de 1.98% a 2.3%: Entonces si tal como la propia AFP lo reconoce hasta el momento cuenta con 996,000 afiliados con un salario promedio de 1,000 nuevos soles, su decisión unilateral de aumento en la comisión, le reporta mayores ingresos por S/. 3´187,000 nuevos soles mensuales, curiosamente y por pura casualidad esta decisión de esta AFP surge a continuación de la ley recientemente promulgada que establece la no afectación de las gratificaciones para efectos de aportes al sistema pensionario.

Muy al margen que la decisión de esta AFP implica directamente la reducción del salario real de sus afiliados, el caso es que no hay mucho margen de reacción para estos últimos, dado que la posibilidad de traslado a otra AFP no se efectiviza en lo inmediato; es así que si un trabajador afiliado a esta AFP no quisiera seguir recibiendo estas atípicas expresiones de afecto y presentase sus solicitud de traslado hoy a otra AFP (dado que todas las otras cobran comisiones mas bajas) la generación de aportes y comisiones en la nueva administradora recién se efectivizaría en el mes de julio tal como la aplicación de nuestra normatividad vigente lo establece.

Téngase en cuenta que el gerente de esta administradora, para justificar la decisión señalaba que: “Los afiliados están alcanzando una rentabilidad de 13% de su inversión, entonces no hay un equilibrio” …(el rendimiento para los accionistas de esta AFP es de “sólo US$ 33 millones”), ¿Usted cree amigo lector que si realmente hubiera competencia en el mercado de administración de fondos previsionales sería posible sin mayor problema como ocurre hoy, el que una AFP incremente el precio del servicio para aumentar el rendimiento de la inversión de los dueños? Claro cuando en lo inmediato la demanda por servicios de administración de fondos de pensiones es (por arreglo institucional) perfectamente inelástica, ello sí es factible.

Otro interesante argumento de esta AFP engreidora de sus afiliados, para justificar el alza en la comisión, según su gerente general es porque:….”lo mas importante es mantener el servicio que venimos dando a nuestros afiliados” Veamos, si le tomamos la palabra a este funcionario el mejor servicio que espera el afiliado de su AFP o de cualquiera, está asociado con el rendimiento neto que logre. El caso es que dado que la rentabilidad se calcula sobre el monto de la cuenta individual de capitalización (el ahorro del afiliado) y las comisiones sobre las remuneraciones; se necesita calcular una comisión que convierte lo que un afiliado desembolsa actualmente durante todo su periodo de ahorro (tiempo de vida laboral útil alrededor de 30 años) en una comisión que se estime sobre su cuenta individual de capitalización, a esto se denomina Comisión Equivalente. Entonces si descontamos a la rentabilidad del fondo pensionario de un afiliado la comisión equivalente, se tiene una versión ajustada de la rentabilidad neta y según cálculos de la propia SBS, paradójicamente, la AFP que subió su comisión para mantener “el servicio a sus afiliados” en los últimos 10 años (dado que el análisis debe hacerse con una perspectiva de largo plazo) presenta una rentabilidad neta de 7.12%, la mas baja respecto a las otras. ¿Mejor servicio?

Adicionalmente, este tipo de decisiones unilaterales van a contrasentido del objetivo macroeconómico de las recientes medidas dictadas, para exonerar las gratificaciones al pago de aportes previsionales y liberalización de las CTS, las cuales buscan propulsar el ingreso disponible, el consumo y la demanda…... Excepto que se suponga que los accionistas de esta AFP tienen tantas necesidades insatisfechas que su propensión a consumir (y por tanto el efecto sobre el consumo y demanda en la economía) es mucho mayor que la que tienen sus afiliados. Al final 3 millones de soles adicionales al mes para los accionistas de esta AFP, los obtienen no por jugar a la loteria, ni por racionalizar sus costos como cualquier otra empresa, sino gracias a una privilegiada posición en un mercado cautivo.