Brexit demographics revisited

More than three years after the Brexit referendum, many of those who promoted the idea are more adamant than ever that the UK should leave the EU. We only need to listen to the candidates for the Conservative Party leadership attempting to outdo themselves in terms of their commitment to the Brexit cause to realise that something unpleasant has taken root in the public debate over the past three years. One of the contenders, Jeremy Hunt who in 2016 supported the Remain campaign, responded in a TV interview to the question whether he was prepared to let businesses go to the wall in the event of a no-deal Brexit that he “would do so but I would do it with a heavy heart … if in order to do what the people tell us to do, we have to leave without a deal, I would do that.“ In all my time watching UK politics, I do not think I have ever heard a politician say something as stupid – and there is a lot of competition.

Brexit has now become an article of faith in which politicians tell us that the will of the people has to be respected. These are the same politicians who respect the will of the people so much that they have twice changed an elected prime minister without consulting the wider electorate. Or, to put it another way, the next prime minister will be a leader without a general mandate, of a government without a majority, promising an outcome that is not deliverable to an unrepresentative slice of the electorate and foisting it on a public that arguably no longer wants it. Let there be no doubt that what is being offered today – a hard Brexit – is not what people voted for in 2016. Of course, a no-deal Brexit may not result in the worst case scenarios that many of us have highlighted. But the simple truth is we do not know what will happen, in which case politicians have a duty not to take unnecessary risks with the livelihoods of the electorate which they represent.

As a reminder, the 2017 Conservative manifesto promised “a strong economy that works for everyone.” It also promised “We will seek to replicate all existing EU free trade agreements and support the ratification of trade agreements entered into during our EU membership … We will introduce a Trade Bill in the next parliament.” So far it has failed to deliver on the first two of these and the Trade Bill has still not been ratified. Brexit is clearly not proceeding as planned. That being the case, what is stopping the government from putting the terms of the EU exit to the electorate for ratification?

What appears to be stopping them is that the Conservatives have nailed their colours to the Brexit mast, and it is far from certain that they will be able to get a second Brexit referendum across the line. A quick look at the demographics highlights the extent of the problem. Based on data through 14 June 2019, we know that 1.34 million people aged 65+ have passed away since the referendum in June 2016. By the same token, roughly 1.16 million young people who were not old enough to vote three years ago are now eligible to do so. Of course, not all those aged 65+ who are now deceased will have supported Brexit and not all those now old enough to cast a vote will necessarily support Remain.

I have thus made some assumptions based on varying degrees of Brexit support for deceased voters aged 65+, ranging from 50% to 75%. Similarly, new voters are assumed to support Brexit over the range 25% to 75%. In simple terms, the higher the degree of support for Brexit amongst deceased voters and the lower the degree of support from younger voters, the more the margin in favour of Leave narrows. This is illustrated in chart 1 (above). In the case where deceased voters are assumed to have voted 75% in favour of Brexit (right-hand column) whereas only 25% of new voters support it (top row) the margin in favour of leaving the EU narrows to 15k. Conversely if deceased voters only voted 50% in favour Brexit (left-hand column) and younger voters are 75% in favour (bottom row), the margin comes in at 1.85 million. Recall that the margin in favour of Remain in 2016 was 1.27 million.

On the basis of the figures presented here, there are no circumstances in which the demographics alone will flip the referendum result. Matters look slightly different if we account for a swing in voters’ preferences on top of the demographics. A swing of 2% in favour of Remain opens up the prospect that the result could be overturned (chart 2). A 4% swing would certainly make a Leave vote a realistic prospect (chart 3). Evidence to suggest there has been a swing in public opinion comes from the poll conducted by YouGov since summer 2016 asking whether people think the vote to leave in 2016 was right or wrong. Those who believe it was the wrong decision now hold a seven point lead over those who believe it was the right decision, whereas in summer 2016 they lagged by three percentage points.

With the Conservative Party comprised of mature voters with a clear bias towards Brexit, no candidate worth their salt is going to promise a second referendum. But the very narrowness of the victory margin in 2016 meant that it was always going to be vulnerable to small changes in demographics and voter preferences. Whilst a second referendum which produces a narrow vote for Remain will not resolve the issue either, it is clear that those politicians who argue that the electorate clearly supports Brexit (“do or die” to quote Boris Johnson) are deluding themselves and large parts of the electorate. The new prime minister has a big job on their hands to restore political unity – the evidence suggests that delivering a no-deal Brexit will not be the way to do that.

Factbombing

The old joke has it that you can prove anything with statistics but the evidence from the political debate over recent years is that the opposite is true. There is indeed such a thing as too much information. Full Fact, the charity that tries to assess the claims and counterclaims made in the course of the UK public debate, has called the weapons grade use of statistics ‘Factbombing’ which is a highly evocative and entirely accurate description of the phenomenon.

I first became aware of the extent to which politicians throw out huge quantities of statistics during George Osborne’s budget speeches without being able to put my finger on what was happening. But it has been taken to new levels in the course of day-to-day parliamentary business, particularly in the wake of the Brexit referendum. Full Fact quote a case from prime ministers’ questions in January when Jeremy Corbyn made 13 separate factual claims in the course of one question, which then did not relate to the question he subsequently asked. Of course, this makes it impossible to give a sensible answer, which is precisely the intention: Much of the pointless trading of facts is designed to gain political advantage and not to enhance the quality of the debate. The flip side is that data overload makes it very difficult for the average voter to follow the twists and turns of the debate.

As for accuracy, fact bombers do tend to quote accurate statistics, although they are often cherry-picked and therefore quoted out of context which reduces their usefulness when the subject matter is put under further scrutiny. But by the time we get to that point, the debate has moved on and nobody cares whether “a Labour government properly funded the police force” or that the Conservatives are responsible for “rising crime, less safe streets.” Perhaps an even bigger problem is that politicians are generally not trusted, so it is questionable whether the electorate believes or cares what “facts” politicians quote in the course of debate which further undermines the case for evidence-based policy.

Of course, one of the reasons why politicians are not trusted is that when they do lie, they lie big. Think about the claim made in 2016 that the UK could save £350 million per week by leaving the EU. This is based on the gross contribution to the EU budget before rebates and the amount returned in the form of EU funding. It is true that over the period 2013 to 2016 the UK’s gross contribution does correspond to this figure, but the net figure is 45% lower (£190 million per week). To the extent that UK fiscal finances never work off the gross figure but off the net number, which means that such a large figure never enters the budget calculations, it is simply untrue to quote the £350 million figure, as the UK Statistics Authority Chairman pointed out to Boris Johnson in 2017. Not that British politicians have a monopoly on untruth: One of the masters of the dark arts is Donald Trump (see here for a rebuttal of some his more egregious comments) and let’s not get started on Watergate.

One of the great problems in the use and misuse of economic statistics is the lack of context. I have made the point previously (here)  that spending “millions” on government outlays is to miss the point that overall revenues are measured in billions and the size of the economy is in the trillions. For example, an outlay of £100 million is worth 4.7% of annual GDP today compared with 9.7% 20 years ago. “Record spending” on the NHS is misleading if it has not kept pace with the overall size of the economy, particularly when the population is growing older and demands on healthcare resources are rising.

It is not just politicians who are guilty of overegging it. The Department for International Trade made a similar howler recently by sending out a tweet pointing out that “exports in the 12 months to April 2019 grew by 4.0% to a record high of £645.8bn.” Exports at a record high in money terms, yes. But as a share of GDP they are still below the high recorded in Q1 2012. Indeed, it is pretty likely that the latest release of economic time series such as exports or GDP will always post record highs so long as they continue to show positive growth. In statistical terms, such series are non-stationary, meaning that their mean and variance are not constant over time. I would be much more impressed if growth (which is statistically stationary) reaches a record high. But in a world where we need to reach for the superlative, it is much easier to go with the lazy headline regarding all-time high levels of exports.

Perhaps the real problem with Factbombing is that it diminishes the quality of debate. We need to know which facts we can trust and which we can discount; which are germane to the debate at hand and which are irrelevant? In a world where we are bombarded with information on a daily basis, it is more important than ever to remember that the singular of data is not anecdote.

The Swiss won't be rolled over

Although it has tended to fly beneath the radar screen, overshadowed as it is by Brexit, Switzerland has been involved an acrimonious dispute with the EU. Unfortunately for the Swiss, it is the fallout from Brexit that has brought matters to a head as the EU seeks to demonstrate that countries that do not play ball will feel the effects of exclusion from the EU market.

To put this into context, although Switzerland is not a member of the EU it has a series of bilateral agreements which allow access to parts of the European single market. One of the prerequisites for maintaining access to the single market is that the network of bilateral agreements be replaced with an overarching framework agreement. This would include a mechanism for settling any legal disputes between Bern and Brussels. Negotiations on these institutional issues began back in May 2014 but progress has been slow due to domestic political feeling, primarily opposition from the right-wing populist SVP which whipped up a storm by highlighting the role of “foreign judges” in Swiss affairs. At the end of 2017, the EU raised the pressure by granting Swiss stock exchange equivalence only for a year unless progress was forthcoming, and at the end of 2018 a further six month extension was granted. But no further progress has been made and at the end of June 2019, exchange equivalence expires.

In practice, this means that Swiss stocks cannot be traded on EU exchanges (and vice versa, thanks to the Swiss decision to reciprocate). Nobody knows what it will mean in practice. But Swiss companies account for around 20% of the Stoxx 50 market cap and 30% of the trading in Swiss large cap stocks takes place on other EU exchanges, primarily London. The companies involved remain sanguine, with a large chunk of trading expected to switch to Zurich and foreign trading shifting to markets such as New York. There is no doubt that this is more than a minor inconvenience and could have potentially damaging market impacts. But the bigger issue reflects global politics, and not for the first time Switzerland finds itself squeezed by the actions of far larger economic blocs.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, pressure from the US and EU forced Switzerland to water down its banking secrecy laws by requiring it to share account data with foreign authorities. Ironically, the state of Delaware remains one of the world’s most important tax havens, and protects the identity and personal information of privately held corporate business owners from public record. Nor is the record of EU Commission President Juncker exactly spotless: After all, he was Prime Minister of Luxembourg when its tax avoidance regime, which was conducive to foreign companies wishing to minimise their tax bill, was set up. It is therefore understandable that the Swiss electorate is not prepared to roll over in front of yet more international pressure on their economic model.

In the current case, the actions of the EU to put pressure on Switzerland have to be seen in the context of the Brexit debate in which the EU wants to be seen to be intolerant of foot-dragging on the part of those countries which do not adhere to their commitments. The UK will watch with interest given that the EU has chosen to make an issue of market equivalence. In the absence of a more concrete plan, the Withdrawal Agreement drawn up between the UK and EU will allow UK financial services providers to access the EU market on the basis of equivalence rather than the current model of passporting. This is granted on the basis that the rules in the UK market are deemed “equivalent” to those in the EU (which given that both sides currently follow the same set of rules is clearly the case). One of the great disadvantages of this model is that either side can end equivalence-based access at short notice, which means it cannot be used as the basis for multi-year financial planning. Nor does the EU have any equivalence-based rules for commercial lending, deposit taking or parts of the insurance sector. Those who can bear to tear themselves away from the unfolding drama of the Conservative leadership race should take note of the EU’s ability to exert pressure.

As for Switzerland, it now finds itself in a very awkward position. The journalist Steffen Klatt has pointed out that there is an inherent contradiction between the will of the people as expressed in the Swiss direct democracy model and the membership requirements of international organisations. The UK might argue that it is in a similar position today. But the crucial difference is that the UK operates a system of representative democracy, and resorting to referendums is an abrogation of responsibility on the part of MPs who the electorate pays to take decisions. Swiss access to the single market was negotiated on the basis of its long-standing commitment to direct democracy - in this sense Switzerland enjoys a far higher degree of democratic engagement than the EU. Unfortunately, it is the EU that has changed its stance more than Switzerland and its criticism is based on the fact that Swiss laws have been slow to adapt to changes in EU internal market law.

Ultimately, the dispute boils down to a conflict between social and economic objectives. Concern about immigration into Switzerland has been rising for some time. Roughly 24% of the Swiss population is foreign born and in 2014 the electorate narrowly voted to support a popular initiative “against mass immigration”. This undermined relationships with the EU, and at the time Switzerland was seen as a European outlier in terms of immigration concerns. However, immigration levels remain the biggest issue for voters across the EU according to the most recent Eurobarometer which is why the likes of the AfD have been making ground in Germany.

Whilst the EU does have legitimate concerns about the way single market laws have been applied in Switzerland, there is also a sense that the EU is using its economic muscle to force compliance at a time when immigration concerns expressed by the Swiss are being reflected elsewhere. I have pointed out before (here) that the political legitimacy of the EU rests on its ability to act in accordance with its citizens’ wishes, and the results of the European Parliament elections last month suggest that there is a diverse range of opinions. The EU is certainly big enough to push Switzerland around, but this kind of behaviour will do nothing to assuage Italian concerns with regard to the EU’s approach to fiscal matters and will only enrage Brexiteers. Sometimes the whole point of carrying a big stick is that you never actually have to use it. In striking at the Swiss, whilst failing to sanction member states such as Poland or Hungary for their flagrant breaches of EU democratic norms, the EU may be lashing out at the wrong target.

Three years on

It is now three years since the British electorate narrowly voted in favour of leaving the EU, and despite the best efforts of the government the UK remains an EU member. The longer the saga drags on, the more vociferous are the Brexiteers who believe they are being denied the victory that is rightfully theirs. When David Cameron first mooted the idea of a referendum, it was to lance the boil of Euroscepticism within the Conservative Party. This strategy could not have been less successful if he had tried. Britain remains more polarised than at any time in living memory and Brexit has consumed politicians to such a degree that they have no time for anything else. Historians argue that the 1956 Suez Crisis was a defining moment in British post-war history, yet three years after the event the scars were at least beginning to heal. Not so with Brexit. 

There has been a lot of revisionism over the past three years, with Brexit supporting politicians making the case that people knew what they were voting for and that “the will of the people” must be respected. The argument is simple and convincing – and profoundly wrong. In the modern argot, Brexiteers are engaging in heavy “gaslighting.” Admittedly David Cameron did point out prior to the referendum that a vote for Brexit would be “to leave the EU and leave the single market. We’d then have to negotiate a trade deal from outside with the European Union.” But Brexit supporters reassured the electorate that the UK would retain access to the single market (“absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market”) and the customs union was barely even mentioned. For anyone who doubts my take on events, look at analysis conducted by the charity Full Fact.

The pamphlet sent to all households ahead of the referendum certainly did not suggest that leaving the EU would mean leaving the single market let alone the customs union. Instead, it pointed out that “Voting to leave the EU would create years of uncertainty and potential economic disruption … Some argue that we could strike a good deal quickly with the EU because they want to keep access to our market. But the Government’s judgement is that it would be much harder than that” (here is a link to the pamphlet if you want to check for yourself).

Whatever Remainers and Leavers may disagree about, it is indisputably the case that the difficulties inherent in leaving the EU were clearly pointed out prior to the referendum. The events of the past three years have borne out this assessment and it is the issue of leaving the EU on terms that would not crash the economy that has always been at the centre of my disagreement with those who wish to leave at any price. Millionaires like Jacob Rees-Mogg or Boris Johnson may be able to survive the hit in the event of a no-deal Brexit but it will be a lot harder for those far lower down the income scale. And for all the fact that the apparent foot-dragging has been blamed on the Remainers in government who have tried their best to thwart the project, the simple truth is that MPs do have a duty to look out for the interests of their constituents, and these will not be served by a no-deal Brexit. 

Who will drive the car towards the cliff edge? 

The next four months will be critical in this regard. It is has long been assumed that Boris Johnson is a near-certainty to be chosen as the next Tory party leader (his recent domestic issues notwithstanding). However, the bookmakers put him at 1-6 odds-on compared to 1-16 on Friday, whilst the odds against his challenger Jeremy Hunt have narrowed from 12-1 to 4-1. Neither candidate fills me with any confidence. 

Johnson maintains that the EU would not have to levy tariffs on UK imports in the event of a no-deal Brexit because the UK could rely on Article 24 of GATT. This is untrue. Article 24 only applies if an agreement has been reached, not if it has been decided not to have an agreement or the two parties are unable to come to an agreement. If the EU were to drop tariffs against the UK in the event of no-deal, it would have to do so against all other countries under the WTO’s Most Favoured Nation rules and that is not going to happen. Meanwhile Jeremy Hunt said at a Tory leadership hustings event yesterday that he had “visited an amazing company … that employs about 350 people; their margins are around 4%. A 10% tariff would wipe them out. So there would be an economic impact of no-deal. If that was the only way to deliver Brexit then I’m afraid we have to do that because that’s what people have voted for. We are a democracy first and foremost.” Yes folks, you read that right. The party of business is prepared to throw small businesses under the bus to deliver Brexit (check the link).

But assuming Johnson does get the gig, he will have a lot of hard work to do. He will come into office on the back of a track record of disloyalty during Theresa May’s tenure and a reputation as one of the worst foreign secretaries ever to grace the post. He is widely distrusted at home based on his famously loose relationship with the truth, and is even less respected across Europe where he is regarded as the face of Brexit. Johnson has insisted that the UK should leave the EU on 31 October: If he holds to that pledge, it will be without any new deal with the EU which has said it will not reopen negotiations, and certainly not with him. But parliament has already expressed its opposition to a no-deal Brexit so if he pushes ahead with this option MPs are unlikely to work with him on other issues (remember the Conservatives form a minority government), which raises the prospect of a general election.

One option that should not be ruled out is that Johnson may be forced to put the Brexit question back to the electorate at some point when it becomes clear that the EU is not prepared to negotiate and the alternative is a hard Brexit. For one thing, it would spike the Labour Party’s attempts to put a second referendum on the table, and if the Conservatives stand for anything it is to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of 10 Downing Street. Nor is Johnson a Brexit ideologue, like many on the lunatic fringe of his party, and he far more ideologically flexible than Theresa May. If any politician can sell the idea of a second referendum, it is him.

Whilst I would attach only a small probability to this outcome, it is evident that as we head into a fourth year of political impasse, something has got to give. Let us also not forget that the EU has been remarkably tolerant of the UK’s position so far. We can debate whether the EU’s stance is right but it has always been open to discussion. That might change in future as senior positions at the European Commission come up for grabs. Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk are about to ride off into the sunset and their successors may wish to move the EU debate forward rather than having to be tied up by Brexit. We know that President Macron is opposed to a further Brexit extension, and he is unlikely to grant Johnson any favours.

A year ago, I refrained from offering any predictions as to where we would be in the Brexit debate in June 2019, largely because I suspected that an Article 50 extension would preserve the status quo. I do not want to offer any hostages to fortune this time either. But I do not think we will be in the same waiting room in 12 months’ time. In order to properly confront the issue, the next prime minister will have to either risk crashing the economy or going where Theresa May did not dare, by offering a referendum or in an extreme case withdrawing the Article 50 notice. The time for talking is over. We need to move on.

Strike whilst the fiscal iron is hot

Apart from a brief splurge in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis, western governments have generally adopted a tight fiscal stance over the past decade with the result that it has been left to central banks to do nearly all of the policy easing. In my last post, I noted that we have broadly reached the limit of what monetary policy can be expected to achieve and that during the next cyclical downturn fiscal policy will have to play a much bigger role. This raises two questions: (i) how much impact will fiscal easing have and (ii) how much fiscal room do governments have?

With regard to the first issue, the now accepted wisdom is that fiscal multipliers are higher than expected prior to the last recession. Much of the evidence available prior to the Great Recession suggested that fiscal multipliers in the developed world were significantly less than unity. In other words, a one percentage point fiscal injection produced a long-run increase in output of less than 1%. If that is indeed the case, the economy would be relatively unresponsive to a fiscal injection and the resultant increase in debt could be judged to be too costly.

But four years after the crash, the IMF concluded that it had underestimated fiscal multipliers by between 0.4 and 1.2. On the assumption that the pre-recession average was around 0.5, the updated research suggests that the true multipliers are in the range 0.9 to 1.7 which is a whole different ball game. Furthermore, they concluded that the efficacy of fiscal policy is greater when interest rates are at the lower bound, as they have been for the past decade but which was never seriously considered prior to 2008 as it was not an outcome that many people foresaw. However, on the basis of the latest empirical evidence it appears that a fiscal expansion will deliver a decent bang for the buck.

But can governments afford to expand fiscal policy when government debt levels are already very high? Obviously, the current position in which public debt levels across Europe average more than 80% of GDP is not a great place to start. But an environment in which interest rates remain low has created a significant degree of fiscal space for governments. The concept of fiscal space is defined as how much governments can borrow without losing market access or facing sustainability challenges. Conventional economic wisdom suggests that markets will limit their purchases of sovereign debt if it is rising at a rapid pace, and require compensation in the form of higher yields. Higher yields raise the cost of debt servicing and increase outlays on interest income which, if they cannot be offset by spending cuts in other areas, result in higher deficits and debt. There is thus a dynamic link between interest rates and debt. But in today’s environment interest rates are lower for any given level of debt than we might have thought possible in the past, hence the idea that fiscal space has increased.

The well-known solvency conditions for public debt depend on the primary deficit (i.e. excluding debt servicing costs), the rate of nominal GDP growth and the interest rate on debt (see chart). The higher the deficit or interest rates the greater the upward pressure on debt-to-GDP ratios, whilst the faster is GDP growth the more downward pressure there is. Getting the balance of these factors right is an important consideration in fiscal solvency, as it suggests it is possible to run a public deficit and still broadly keep the debt ratio stable, depending on the extent to which GDP growth exceeds the interest rate.

This growth/interest rate nexus thus becomes crucial. To look at this in a long-term context I have taken data for the UK going back to 1700. During the 18^th and 19^th centuries on average, the interest rate on debt was higher than the rate of GDP growth. Even though the UK did run a primary surplus over the period, the debt ratio continued to creep upwards from around 20% of GDP in 1700 to 200% by the end of Napoleonic Wars and only fell back below 100% in 1861. On average during the 19^th century the debt ratio averaged 120%. But although the UK ran a primary deficit on average during the 20th century, the rate of GDP growth exceeded the interest rate with the result that the debt ratio tended to fall. Even though the debt ratio hit almost 250% in the wake of the Second World War, a combination of solid growth and financial repression which put a lid on interest rates, was sufficient to produce a significant reduction in the debt ratio to just above 20% by the early-1990s.

The takeaway is that high debt levels need not be the obstacle to fiscal expansion that many politicians seem to think. Admittedly, GDP growth has slowed over the last decade compared to what we were used to prior to 2008, but even if trend real growth is in the range 1% to 1.5% and inflation remains stuck at 1.5%, this implies nominal GDP growth of around 2.5% to 3%. Meanwhile central banks are currently engaged in a policy of financial repression (though they would never call it as such). Right now, 10-year yields in the UK are just above 0.8% and in Germany they are well into negative territory at -0.3%. Clearly, therefore, nominal GDP growth is higher than the interest rate on debt and a quick calculation allows us to estimate the size of the primary deficit that will allow the debt-to-GDP ratio to remain stable[1]. Current figures for the UK, for example, suggest that a deficit of 1.9% is eminently sustainable. 

To those politicians who argue that reducing the debt ratio is an objective of itself, I pose the question why? The demand for long-term government paper has never been higher as investors who are flush with the liquidity created by central banks fall over themselves to find a place to invest it. This is not to say that governments should be opening the taps with no regard for the future. After all, if rates do rise the cost of servicing high debt levels will also increase. But there is scope for a judicious loosening of the reins, and there has never been a better time to use the opportunity afforded by low interest rates for social purposes. Those European governments who are passing up this opportunity (and not just those in the euro zone) are guilty of sloppy economic analysis, and perhaps even more egregiously, impoverishing their citizens for no good reason. Fiscal opportunities like this have historically not come around often.

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[1] Primary deficit = (Debt_t-1/ GDP_t-1)*(1-(1+i_t)/(1+y_t)) (assuming stock-flow adjustment equals zero)

The limits of central banking

Prior to the great crash of 2008, investment bankers were – at least in their own minds – regarded as masters of the universe. No more. As their fancy clothes, woven from cloth so fine that the eye could not see it, were revealed to be non-existent, they were usurped by central bankers who used the muscle of zero interest rates and the power of their balance sheets to rescue the global economy from meltdown. More than a decade later and questions are increasingly being raised as to whether the tools which were deployed in 2009, and which are still in use today, are fit for purpose. Worse still, central bankers can be forgiven for wondering whether they have been hung out to dry by politicians who seem increasingly unwilling to provide the necessary degree of support to allow them to do their job effectively.

The BoE: A relative oasis of calm

The BoE finds itself in a slightly easier position than either the Fed or ECB although it has been sucked into the political fallout from Brexit, and with a new Governor set to take over from Mark Carney in just over seven months’ time, his successor may face an unenviable task in steering a post-Brexit course. One criticism that can be levelled at the BoE is that its forward guidance policy, which has often hinted at rate hikes which never materialise, may be about to miss the mark again. Indeed, recent hints that the next rate move will be upwards flies in the face of economic data, which point at below-target inflation in H2, and trends in the global monetary cycle. In common with many central banks, it has failed to create space to ease policy in the event that the economy cools. Central bankers dismissed this line of reasoning when conditions were propitious for a rate hike in 2014, and whilst Brexit has complicated the picture, it is hard to avoid the feeling that the BoE will go into the next economic slowdown with precious little ammunition.

The ECB: Taking flak from all sides

Across the channel, the ECB’s situation is even more desperate. Despite having cut the main refinancing rate to zero and the deposit rate to -0.4% whilst boosting its balance sheet to almost 40% of GDP, a meaningful economic recovery in the euro zone remains elusive and inflation continues to undershoot the ECB’s target. There are now expectations that the ECB will counter current economic conditions with even more monetary easing – a view that Mario Draghi reinforced this morning. The ECB is all that has stood between the integrity of the euro zone and disaster: It has done all the policy easing whilst governments have stood idly by without deploying any of the fiscal ammunition at their disposal. Draghi, who will leave his post as ECB President in October, deserves great credit for doing “whatever it takes” to keep the show on the road. Those who have criticised Draghi, including Bundesbank President Weidmann and various northern European politicians, should take some time to reflect on what might have happened in 2012 had the ECB not opened the taps.

However, the criticisms levelled by Weidmann at least come from someone with skin in the game. Draghi’s hints of further easing were met today by a Twitter blast from the self-styled stable genius in the White House accusing the ECB of weakening the euro against the dollar “making it unfairly easier for them to compete against the USA. They have been getting away with this for years, along with China and others.” This sends two messages: (i) Trump is a lobster short of a clambake and more seriously (ii) he threatens to open a new front in the war of economic nationalism, dragging the euro zone into a conflict which has hitherto been confined to the US and China.

The Fed: Managing in the presence of a stable genius

Imagine, therefore, what it must be like to be in Jay Powell’s shoes. The Fed has done what the textbooks recommend by taking away some of the excessive stimulus as the economy recovered. Unfortunately, Trump has determined that the Fed is the main obstacle to the ongoing US upswing and has been excoriating the FOMC for not cutting rates. Worse still, a story surfaced today suggesting that in February the White House explored the possibility of stripping Powell of his chairmanship and leaving him as a Fed governor. This is an unprecedented attack on the independence of the central bank. Not that politicians have refrained from dictating to the Fed in the past. One story, recounted by Reuters journalist Andy Bruce, recalls instructions from the White House to former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker ordering him not to raise interest rates during an election campaign. “Volcker, knowing the command was illegal, left the room without saying anything.” But the attacks on Powell are far worse – and lest we forget, he was appointed by Trump in 2018 with the endorsement that “He’s strong, he’s committed, he’s smart.”

The FOMC has recently revised down its assessment of the need for future rate hikes and it is increasingly likely that the next move will be a cut. It is not clear whether this is a direct response to the President’s attacks or whether the Fed has misread the economic outlook so badly that it feels the need to ease policy rather than tighten, as it believed necessary at the start of the year. However, to the extent that the Fed may be trying to head off further attempts by Trump to impose his own candidates on the FOMC, following the failed attempts to appoint Stephen Moore and Herman Cain, it is likely that the Fed is acceding to the pressure. Perhaps the Fed’s view is that by throwing a few small scraps in Trump’s direction, it will be better placed to maintain its independence in the longer run. But whilst it has long been evident that the Fed is not as free from political influence as it portrays, selling out in such an obvious manner could have the reverse effect by undermining its perception of independence in the market.

Dealing with the lower bound

The common themes across the central banking universe are that they are running out of tools to deal with the low-inflation world which we inhabit today, whilst also coming under much greater pressure to deliver on politicians’ objectives. With regard to instruments at the central banks’ disposal once interest rates reach the lower bound, there are essentially just three: QE, forward guidance and driving interest rates into negative territory as the ECB has done. At a recent Fed monetary policy conference (a so-called “Fed Listens Event” which deserves more in-depth coverage another time), a paper by Sims and Wu highlighted that QE is the most useful tool of the three; forward guidance depends on a central bank’s credibility (cf. the Fed’s position) and that negative rates become less effective the larger is the balance sheet (cf. the ECB’s position).

With central banks having tried all of these instruments to a greater or lesser degree, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we are near the end of the road with regard to monetary policy. After all, central banks have largely failed to stimulate inflation and there are serious concerns that if the floodgates are opened even further, this will serve only to store up greater problems in the future. Indeed, I have long argued that we will only know the full impact of low interest rates in the very long term once we see what our pensions are worth. What this does suggest is that much more of the burden of managing the economy will have to fall on fiscal policy in future – an issue I will deal with in my next post. The good news is that this will at least take central bankers out of the firing line and make politicians take some responsibility for what they should have been doing all along.