Assessing the strength of the tremors

Earthquakes are the result of long periods during which two tectonic plates rub against each other but are unable to smoothly slide over each other due to geological irregularities. But the pressure finally builds up sufficiently to force one plate to slide over the irregularity with such force that it releases energy in the form of a quake. They are generally unpredictable in terms of their timing and the impact of their devastation. But the forces triggering them take a long time to build – indeed, one could be forming under your feet right now.

So it is with economic events and today we have seen a couple of minor tremors which could be the prelude to a much bigger event. Let’s start in Germany where talks to try and form a coalition government finally failed yesterday after two months of fruitless negotiations. There are now essentially three options on the table: form a minority government; form a grand coalition with the SPD or call new elections. Chancellor Merkel does not appear keen on a minority government and the SPD apparently are not willing to repeat the experience of the legislative period 2013-17 when they were accused of being the CDU’s lapdog. And the option of new elections is not palatable to anybody, although Merkel sees it as the least worst option. Indeed, the shock triggered by the September result might cause those who voted AfD as a protest to rethink their strategy because it simply leads to more political chaos. There again, they may not.

Having negotiated the Dutch and French elections earlier in the year, the irony would be if Germany were to become the primary source of political instability with Angela Merkel’s credibility dented beyond repair. It is bad news for two reasons. First, for the euro zone. Having helped steer the euro zone through an existential crisis, Merkel is perceived to be critical to attempts to keep the region on track. Indeed, in Emmanuel Macron she has a political partner across the Rhine who has the vision and energy to kick start Franco-German co-operation. But like other European countries which have turned in on themselves in a bid to address domestic dissatisfaction, a large swathe of the German electorate voted for the AfD in protest at Merkel’s policy of opening the gates to thousands of immigrants. Even assuming she remains as Chancellor, Merkel cannot blithely dismiss this constituency, suggesting she may be a bit too preoccupied in future with domestic issues to fully focus on the euro zone.

It may also be bad news for the UK as it seeks to push forward with Brexit negotiations, for precisely the same reasons. A German Chancellor who is understandably more worried about domestic developments will be less focused on a problem which is perceived across the EU27 as a self-inflicted wound. Moreover, there still appear to be those on the UK side who believe that getting Germany onside will be sufficient to help them get what they want. This was always a naïve view – after all there are 26 other governments with a vote. But if Merkel is less willing, or able, to push through a Brexit deal it removes a crucial weapon from the British armoury.

A second tremor today was the announcement that the European Medicines Agency and European Banking Authority are set to leave London for Amsterdam and Paris respectively. This is the Realpolitik of Brexit in action. For a quick overview of why the loss of the EMA is a big deal, this Twitter thread is worth a read. Recall that in April, Brexit Secretary David Davis would not accept that the two agencies had to leave London even though it was clear that the EU had already begun the process of finding a new home. And lest we forget, banks have not yet moved people out in great numbers – but move people they will over the next 15 months, despite the smug proclamations of those who think the world will remain the same as before. Indeed, for anyone who believes that Brexit is broadly leaving the UK unscathed, it should be noted that the economy is growing only at a rate of 1.5% per annum compared to a rate around 2% prior to the referendum – and that is despite an economic pickup in continental Europe.

Neither of the tremors we have experienced today bode well for the future of Europe in general and the UK in particular. Sometimes, of course, preliminary tremors never result in the big earthquake – as residents of San Francisco over the last 100 years can testify. But they should be treated as a warning sign that there could be worse to come. In the UK case, you can bet on it.

Fiscal constraints are mainly political

With days to go before the government unveils its Autumn Budget, the newspapers are full of the various wheezes that the Chancellor might adopt in order to keep borrowing down whilst simultaneously addressing the key areas that fiscal policy is expected to tackle. As if the economics were not daunting enough, the Chancellor is unpopular amongst large swathes of his party who view his calls for a soft Brexit as a form of heresy. Indeed, were it not for the fact that the Conservatives were decisively weakened at last June’s election, the generally accepted narrative is that Philip Hammond would have been sacked in the summer – partly for Brexit-related reasons but also because of his bungled handling of the proposed rise in national insurance contributions for the self-employed in March.

Hammond’s task is unenviable. The Conservatives are looking to him to provide a fillip to a government which is struggling to regain momentum, but if he gets it wrong his political stock will fall further. The three key areas which he is expected to address are austerity, the thorny subject of public sector pay and a lack of housebuilding. In effect, the latter two are branches of the first and go to the heart of the government’s strategy over the last seven years. Over this period, total government spending has fallen by more than 5 percentage points of GDP – there has not been a squeeze like it since the early-1990s, and even that reflected the rapid pace of nominal GDP growth.

But there is an increasing sense that public sector services are struggling to cope. Although the NHS has been ring-fenced from the worst of the cuts, outlays are not rising fast enough to cope with the changing composition of the population; concerns are mounting about the lack of funding for the police and fire brigade (something I touched on here) and education remains a major bugbear for all political parties. In addition, the squeeze on public sector pay, which was frozen for two years in 2010 and has been capped at 1% per year since 2013, has demoralised staff morale and evoked sympathy from the British public which is generally supportive of the public sector workers on which it relies. Meanwhile, there have been calls for additional borrowing to fund a public sector housebuilding programme to alleviate shortages, and reforms to a university student funding model which requires them to load up on debt now and pay it back over a period of 30 years.

All of this is taking place against a backdrop of a plan to broadly balance the budget by 2022 (although the Conservatives admitted in their election manifesto that it is unlikely to happen before the mid-2020s); the UK’s poor productivity performance – likely to be revised down by the OBR on Wednesday – which will increase the fiscal headwinds, and Brexit. Not only is Hammond’s task unenviable – it is frankly unachievable under current circumstances. Up to now, he has operated within the constraints set by previous Chancellor George Osborne, whose mantra of deficit reduction at all costs was misguided (as I never tire of pointing out). But now he has the opportunity to redefine the fiscal agenda.

First and foremost, the balanced budget agenda should be ditched for it serves no useful economic purpose. Moreover, the nonsense of talking about fiscal aggregates in monetary terms should be downgraded. The howls of tabloid outrage every time a figure in the millions – or even billions – is discussed should be set against the fact that the value of economic output is in the trillions. Furthermore, if the government is concerned about how the market perceives fiscal credibility, the focus should be on debt and not so much the fiscal balance. In simplistic terms the debt-to-GDP can fall, even in the presence of a small primary deficit, so long as the rate of nominal GDP growth is higher than the interest rate on debt. Admittedly, the government has more work to do here as it struggles to stabilise the debt ratio which, on the standard Maastricht criteria basis, is just shy of 90%. But the rate of increase has slowed and debt stabilisation is possible in the next year or so.

There is certainly no sign that the debt market is concerned about UK public finances which, let us not forget, show the deficit-to-GDP ratio just above 2% compared with almost 10% in fiscal 2009-10. Indeed, the interest rate on the benchmark 10-year gilt is currently at an unprecedented 1.3%. There is thus scope to loosen the purse strings a little. I further maintain that the plan to cut the corporate tax rate from 20% today to 17% by 2020 puts an unnecessary hole in the budget balance which could alleviate the strain on critical public services (it is estimated to cost just over £7bn in lost revenues).

A bit of fiscal largesse might go some way towards lifting the gloomy national mood which is reflected in our polarised society (rich against poor; young against old; Leavers against Remainers). Brexit will also change the calculations. Contrary to what the Leavers told us, any fiscal savings from leaving the EU will likely be more than swamped by the long-term impact on revenues resulting from slower growth. I suspect the Chancellor knows this but given the political constraints imposed by his own party, there is little he can do about it.

No steps forward, two steps back

As politicians go, I have a lot of time for former Chancellor Ken Clarke. Anyone who can survive the rudderless Major government of 1992-97 with their reputation intact, never mind enhanced as in Clarke’s case, is a person of substance. Clarke is also a prominent Remainer, who described himself on a Twitter account as a one-nation Tory. He is, in other words, an old-fashioned centrist who is loyal to his party but is not averse to working across party lines on issues of major importance. Indeed, Clarke was the only Conservative MP to vote against the bill triggering Article 50. This is ironic, since his constituents voted to leave the EU in last year’s referendum whereas many of his party colleagues represent areas which voted Remain yet who still voted to initiate the Article 50 process. If you are half as confused as I am by the “will of the people” argument, then I am twice as confused as you.

I had originally planned to quote some of the latest tweets from Clarke’s Twitter account but the account has been suspended, which has to raise questions as to whether it was genuine (pace this week’s big debate about whether fake tweets from Russian bots had undue influence on the Brexit referendum). Nonetheless, the sentiments expressed on the account sounded sufficiently Clarke-ite to bear repeating. One thing particularly caught my eye, which was that although many people have significant reservations about Brexit, including many MPs, the government is committed to the process. It cannot easily be stopped, however much we might wish that were the case. But that does not mean that Conservative MPs should not oppose the most egregiously stupid parts of the process.

As the EU Withdrawal Bill enters the committee stage, with MPs able to table amendments to the original bill, we are now beginning to get a more clear idea of who is opposed and what they object to. As an aside, it should be noted that twelve months ago, this piece of legislation was designated as the Great Repeal Bill which was originally designed to transpose EU law into UK law whilst giving government the powers to strike out those bits they deem inapplicable. Easy, right? Except for the fact that the process is far more complicated in practice, and there is also the small matter of parliamentary accountability. As currently envisaged, the bill gives government the power to strike out EU laws without parliamentary scrutiny (the so-called Henry VIII clause) which rather makes a mockery of the claim that the British parliament will once again take control of British laws.

Having decided on a more prosaic name for the bill, the government is finding it tough to keep its legislative process on track. Brexit Secretary David Davis has promised that MPs will be given a vote on any final deal agreed with the EU. Whilst that is a concession relative to what was originally proposed, it is meaningless, particularly in view of Theresa May’s promise to put the exact time and date of the UK’s departure from the EU into the bill. For one thing, Davis offers only a take-it-or-leave-it vote, so if MPs reject the plan, the UK will leave the EU without any deal, which would be crazy. Second, if the negotiations go to the wire then MPs will not have the opportunity to consider its content before the proposed deadline. As many MPs, including Ken Clarke, pointed out this reduces the government’s flexibility with regard to dealing with any last minutes hiccups. Better to delay a week or more to allow for more discussion than maintain an artificial deadline simply for the sake of political pride.

With 15 Conservative MPs apparently prepared to block the insertion of the specific date into the bill (or, as the Daily Telegraph would have it, "mutineers"), it is likely that the parliamentary process will be far slower than the government initially expected, and the committee stage may not be completed by Christmas as planned, which could delay its passage into law beyond next spring. Under normal circumstances, the sensible option would be to allow more time for these complex negotiations to take place. But time is the one thing the government does not have. Indeed, we have just gone past the halfway point between the date of the referendum and the proposed EU departure date, and it does not feel that we are much beyond the wish-list phase.

Ironically, Manfred Weber, the German MEP who heads the European People's Party Group in the European Parliament and is an ally of Angela Merkel, today held meetings with Theresa May and David Davis and declared himself “more optimistic” about the possibility of reaching agreement with the UK than before (which I assume means she has offered more money). But he also said “the whole idea of building up the European Union, which was supported by the British governments … was to make the lives of European citizens better. We are destroying some of the things that we achieved already. We will regret it … It is a shame there is not the will to stay together.”

I happen to believe he is right, particularly when Politico reports that the UK will at best be offered a basic Canada-style trade deal on exit, and not the broader bespoke deal that Theresa May hoped for – a view which I have heard from another senior EU policymaker in the course of a conversation this week. Indeed, the same person said that a Norway style deal would not work for the UK, given the complexity of the British economy, and since a Swiss-style deal was never going to be on the table, it’s Canada or nothing.

But the most galling part is that the government does not have a coherent plan on how to leave the EU, let alone how to deal with the aftermath. It is car-crash politics, and diminishes the UK by leaving it economically weaker and politically more isolated. But sometimes the only way people learn is through their own mistakes. Unfortunately we all suffer in the process.

It's very quiet out there

As UK political uncertainty mounts, it is striking that sterling-denominated assets have held up reasonably well of late. Sterling has traded in a relatively narrow range over the past year with the trade weighted index registering a high of 79 in May and a low of 74 in August. Surprisingly, investor net speculative positions in sterling, which were heavily negative early this year, have now turned flat to slightly positive. This reflects the fact that FX investors are currently not expecting a significant sterling collapse, although the timing of the move does appear to be correlated with changes in the market’s position on BoE rate hikes. Meanwhile, although the FTSE100 has trailed indices such as the Eurostoxx  50 year-to-date, they have moved broadly in line since May and the FTSE has managed a year-to-date return of 3.8%  – not great when set against other markets but nonetheless positive. Moreover, the weakness of sterling tends to be a positive factor for UK equities given how much revenue is booked in foreign currencies (around 70%).

Thus, political uncertainty appears to be conspicuous by its absence so far as markets are concerned, which reflects the fact that investors are looking through all the rhetoric and concluding that the likelihood of a cliff-edge Brexit is low. Since we are still more than 16 months away from the expiry of the Article 50 negotiation phase, markets take the view that there is no sense in panicking now – there will be plenty of time for that later. Nonetheless, the closer we get to the deadline without agreement, the greater the likelihood that assets will come under pressure, but that is probably a story for next year.

To get a sense of how the market and economic agents assess uncertainty in the UK at present, I constructed an uncertainty index based upon eight variables: (i) FTSE100 equity volatility; (ii) EUR/GBP FX volatility; (iii) GBP/USD FX volatility; (iv) the Baker, Bloom and Davis policy uncertainty indicator; (v) GfK survey data for expected consumer finances; (vi)  expected unemployment and (vii) expected economic situation. The final component is (viii) the CBI’s estimate of uncertainty as a factor limiting capex. Furthermore, if we strip out the equity and currency vol measures, we have a five variable index of domestic uncertainty.

The chart suggests that the aggregate uncertainty index has dipped back close to its long-term average (2000-2015). Whilst the domestic indicator has not fallen quite as sharply, it is well below its summer 2016 highs with only the Baker et al policy uncertainty index showing any extended deviation. The interesting thing is that this policy uncertainty index is based on an online trawl of newspaper websites looking for various keywords which express uncertainty. To the extent that much of the concern expressed about Brexit has indeed come via the media (not to mention the blogosphere, so I am as guilty as anyone), it highlights the noise inherent in the debate without necessarily shedding much light on how the economy is performing. Indeed, many of the other indicators normalised very quickly, which suggests that most economic agents generally got on with life in the wake of the Brexit vote.

This does not mean to say that everything will remain so quiet. The GfK survey data point to a deterioration in expectations for the future economic situation with sentiment now back at levels last seen in spring 2013. Moreover, with inflation beginning to put the squeeze on consumers, we are starting to see some deterioration in expectations for consumer finances.

It is worth noting that the indicator is not a good predictor of longer-term trends. Even in the early months of 2008, when there were signs that trouble was brewing in the banking sector and the economy was losing some momentum, both the aggregate and domestic uncertainty indices remained at low levels. A lurch towards the cliff-edge of Brexit could change perceptions quite markedly. Perhaps UK consumers and corporates need to hurt even more before they realise the potential economic consequences of Brexit. This is why just looking at the current relative stability of the uncertainty index is not necessarily a good guide to future trends. In my view – and that of most of the economics profession – a number of senior British politicians do not seem to understand the risk they are taking with the wider economy. It is incumbent upon them to get it right or the electorate may be in a less forgiving mood than it has been of late.

We'll settle for either strong or stable

Anyone looking at the UK from the outside can be forgiven for wondering what has gone wrong with a political process that the British like to think spawned the Mother of all Parliaments (there again, many natives are wondering the same thing). The government is weak and divided – in office but not in power – whilst the political establishment has been rocked by allegations of sexual misconduct. All this is happening against a backdrop of the most critical set of negotiations since 1945, which require the government’s undivided attention – but which it is unable to give for the reasons just outlined.

The obvious answer is that Brexit is the culprit. According to Philip Stephens, writing in the FT, “Brexit has broken British politics." There is certainly a lot of truth in this. As Stephens notes, “a majority of MPs think Brexit is a mistake but feel obliged to pursue it lest they be accused of defying what the tabloids declare to be ‘the will of the people.’” Quite what the “will of the people” might be is hard to discern from a referendum result which produced a near 50-50 outcome. Consequently, and unsurprisingly, treating the result of a (legally non-binding) referendum in the same way as a winner-takes-all election was always going to polarise already-inflamed opinions.

But a less obvious answer is that the Brexit vote was itself the manifestation of something deeper. Arguably – and I am in speculative territory here – it was the result of dissatisfaction with a political establishment which has failed to adhere to the rules and standards which it expects others to abide by. More worryingly for an economist, there has been a steady erosion of rules- and evidence-based policy making which has contributed to hugely sub-optimal outcomes. We can go back to 2002 and the case which the UK government made for involvement in a military invasion of Iraq which was not sanctioned by the United Nations. The UK Prime Minister Tony Blair put his name to a document that argued the government of Saddam Hussain had developed weapons of mass destruction, despite the fact that international observers on the ground found no such evidence. Trust in UK politicians was further eroded by the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal in which many MPs blatantly ignored guidelines on the use of public money in reclaiming expenses. There were rules in place but they were routinely flouted.

A more economically relevant case is the flouting of the fiscal rules enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty, designed to prevent governments from running a deficit-to-GDP ratio in excess of 3%. Moreover, the criteria for entry into the single currency in the first place was that “the gross debt total of the general government should not exceed the reference value of 60 percent of GDP or, if it does, it should be sufficiently diminishing and approaching the reference value at a satisfactory pace.” With both Belgium and Italy showing debt ratios above 100% at end-1997 (the reference date for entry into EMU), it’s safe to say that they were nowhere near achieving this goal. Of the original 11 members Austria, France, Ireland, Netherlands and Spain also missed the target.

I did point out in 2003, at a time when investors were concerned that countries were routinely missing the 3% deficit target that “by failing to force governments to comply more strictly with the 60% deficit:GDP ratio prior to the start of Emu, the fiscal playing field has not been levelled sufficiently to allow some countries to easily meet the Stability and Growth Pact deficit criteria. In simple terms, the debt targets were simply not taken seriously enough.” This is not to say that the euro zone debt crisis could have been avoided, but had debt ratios been closer to the required thresholds in the first place, some of the smaller countries would have had more fiscal headroom to cope with the storms which subsequently blew in.

The banking crisis, which resulted in many financial institutions requiring government support, is another case in point. The public’s view is that the taxpayer has carried a heavy burden without those responsible for causing the problem ever being held properly to account. Again, this could be seen as a failure to apply rules – or at least the failure to apply natural justice.

Each of the examples outlined here was avoidable. Had one occurred in isolation, arguably we could have coped better with the fallout. But failure to consistently apply the rules erodes policy legitimacy and invokes greater challenges to the status quo, producing an ideal breeding ground for political discontent. The academic literature in this area explains how policies which are initially not popular (such as Brexit) can find broader acceptance as the public taps into various aspects of the policy (see the introduction to this paper from The Quality of Governance Institute at the University of Gothenburg).

The authors of this paper also make the point that “public opinion changes as a result of policy implementation.” Given the UK government’s abject failure to get its act together on many aspects of policy, this raises serious legitimacy issues. Not only did successive UK governments fail to deal consistently with the conditions which provoked the Brexit backlash, but the current administration is failing to deal with the consequences. Theresa May once promised to deliver strong and stable government. Right now, many people would settle for one or the other.