Water, water ...

One of the motivations for setting up this blog eight years ago was to highlight that continued reliance on the private sector for solutions to economic problems is a far from optimal strategy (see my June 2016 post, here). The recent furore regarding the failings of the UK water industry, along with the vexed problem of how to organise the rail network, are examples in a long line of businesses which have failed to live up to post-privatisation expectations. At a time when government is vexed by the problem of persistently low productivity, this makes it all the more important that infrastructure works efficiently.

Looking back to the 1980s and 1990s, you might recall that one of the main arguments advanced by the Conservative governments of the time was that the private sector would run businesses more efficiently and productively than the public sector. By introducing market discipline, competition, and incentives for innovation, this would lead to cost reductions and improved performance. In addition, private companies would have stronger incentives to improve service quality and customer satisfaction in order to attract and retain customers. While there were examples of industries which did benefit from a return to the private sector – telecoms being the prime candidate, which gained from a technological revolution – in many instances, privatisation simply meant swapping a public sector monopoly for one in the private sector. As a result, they had little incentive to innovate and could rely on a captive market to sustain revenues.

Where did it all go wrong?

Evidence to suggest that the water industry has not generated the post-privatisation efficiency gains that were claimed for it comes from a study by the consultancy Frontier Economics published in 2017 (chart below). Their analysis suggests that total factor productivity in the water industry did pick up immediately after privatisation but that it quickly slowed thereafter, doing nothing to dispel the suggestion that the industry has lived off the assets it inherited at the time of privatisation in 1989.

Yet the failings of the privatisation model introduced in the UK over the last thirty-odd years go far beyond the shoddy way in which customers are treated (overpriced train journeys, effluent being dumped in rivers, electricity companies that went bust at the first sign of trouble in global energy markets). One of the issues that privatisation was meant to tackle was reduced reliance on a pay-as-you-go model, in which the current generation of taxpayers stumped up for investment from which the next generation would benefit. Under a pay-when-delivered model, it was planned that balance sheets be used to pay for the initial cost of investment and future customers pay for the services they consume and so long as prices were set appropriately, the business would generate a decent rate of return. In addition to this being a sound economic basis, there was also a political motive for doing this as far as water was concerned. Planned EU legislation in the 1980s and 1990s required a significant rise in future investment which the government did not want to pay for, nor did it want customers (aka voters) to have to pay for it either. Getting private companies to use their debt-free balance sheet to pay for investment seemed like an expedient solution (water companies were debt free on privatisation).

But as the Thames Water debacle shows, that is not what happened. Newly privatised companies resorted to borrowing against assets on the balance sheet, much of which was ultimately used to pay shareholder dividends. As a result, Thames Water now has huge debts which threaten it with bankruptcy. This has forced a return to a pay-as-you-go model with today’s customers being asked to fund investment while servicing today’s debt.

Regulatory failure

While the public rightly puts most of the blame for the failures of privatised utilities on its managers, we should not ignore the fact that in many cases regulators have been remarkably complacent. First off, regulators in the electricity and water industries failed to stop companies from leveraging up their balance sheet from the 1990s. The companies perhaps ought to have behaved more responsibly but it is the duty of regulators to step in when irresponsible behaviour occurs.

Second, regulators did what they often do, and conduct regulation by rule book. As the economist Dieter Helm points out, the periodic reviews they conducted generated huge amounts of admin which companies struggled to process. As Helm notes: “company boards find that they are essentially asking the regulators to make decisions for them. In recognition that the “customer” is Ofwat rather than the household and business users, utilities engage in lots of lobbying, and try to work out what answer the regulator wants, rather than what their customers want and the wider environment needs ... Utilities start by trying to guess the answer the regulator (and the government of the day) might want, and then shape their business plans around them.” Both these elements chime with the situation in the financial services industry pre-2008 when regulators failed to rein in the (dubious) actions of many banks and issued vague directives without giving clear guidance as to whether institutions were compliant. And as we know, the UK regulator ended up being abolished and a large part of its responsibilities transferred to the BoE.

A final problem, though one which is perhaps only recognisable in hindsight, was that regulators applied the wrong cost of capital – a key metric used in determining the allowed rate of return and thus the appropriate prices for consumers. They applied a weighted average cost of capital (WACC) averaged across all areas of the business, rather than looking at each individual area separately. As a result, for each individual business WACC turned out to be too high for the cost of debt and too low for the cost of equity, providing an incentive for privatised utilities to switch from equity to debt and encouraging the gearing that proved to be so problematic for Thames Water (for more detail, see the work by Helm here or here). Here too, there are echoes of the failures of the VaR models which so underpriced financial risks prior to 2008.

 

Nationalisation is not (necessarily) the answer

Not surprisingly, this has caused a political uproar which threatens to rebound on the Conservative government which has long been an advocate of privatisation, while giving ammunition to those at the other end of the political spectrum who advocate taking assets into public ownership. However, nationalisation is not necessarily the best solution (it might be for rail, but that is a subject for another time). The arguments continue to rage as to whether renationalisation would result in an industry which is better aligned with customer interests. But the biggest argument against it is the fact that the state currently does not have the funds available to buy the utilities without issuing significant amounts of additional debt, and certainly does not have the cash available to fund the necessary investment. Many utilities are foreign owned (over the last 20 years Thames Water has had German, Australian and Canadian owners) and nationalisation would sit uncomfortably with efforts to attract foreign investment. As Helm has consistently pointed out, the UK suffers from a sizeable savings deficit – the current account deficit is a measure of the excess of domestic investment over savings – which implies that it is already reliant on the kindness of strangers to fund investment.

What to do?

Since we cannot easily nationalise Thames Water, and imposing yet more red tape would not seem to be a viable option, we may be left with little option other than to place it in administration. This is effectively what happened to the privatised rail operator Railtrack in 2001. Rather than nationalise the whole operation, however, there is a strong case for splitting it into smaller parts with different regional responsibilities and maybe with different functional responsibilities (e.g. one for water supply and one for treating sewage), selling off the good bits and putting the bad bits into special administration.

Either way, it seems socially irresponsible to allow a company that has failed to properly manage the largest water company in Europe to be allowed another go at getting it right. This may be the right time to redraw the contract between the state and the market, and learn some of the lessons of the last thirty years. In short, the companies must strike a better balance between serving their shareholders and their customers, entailing effective regulation (not simply more of it, but better targeted regulation); breaking up private sector monopolies; more strict controls over pricing and more effective sanctions against those who transgress. On the assumption that a new government will have to pick up the pieces of this problem in the not-too-distant future, the Thames Water problem could provide a good opportunity to reimagine how utilities should be run in the twenty first century.

Year ahead 2024: 2023 with a twist

They say an optimist is someone who stays up until midnight to see the new year in, whereas a pessimist stays up to make sure that the old year is finally gone. It’s an apt description of where we find ourselves now, for many of the economic and political issues we were discussing in late-2023 will still be high on the agenda in 2024.

The economics

As we look ahead, it is briefly worth reflecting on how we did in 2023 to assess whether there are lessons for our year-ahead predictions. For my part, I give myself a pass on the inflation view although it perhaps decelerated even more rapidly than I anticipated. In my year-ahead predictions a year ago I suggested that “calls for interest rate cuts will build. Central banks are unlikely to heed these calls, and maintain policy tighter than might be justified by economic conditions.” That is not too far off the mark: There are concerns in the euro area and the UK that central bank tightening has gone too far, which in turn is crimping growth and is setting us up for a difficult 2024. Markets are convinced that central banks will cut rates as inflation remain quiescent – a view with which I agree although it will not be sufficient to give much of a growth boost this year.

Indeed, although my suggestion that the industrialised world would experience a recession in 2023 proved wide of the mark, we are far from out of the woods. The energy price shock was expected to be a catalyst for a growth slowdown a year ago but in the event both the US and European economies avoided the worst case outcomes. Today, however, the catalyst is more likely to be the lagged effects of monetary tightening over the past two years. Real interest rates in the US and Europe turned positive in late-2023 and are likely to remain relatively high over the first half of 2024. In addition, many firms and households have been protected from the full impact of recent rate hikes by fixed-rate borrowing agreements. US property investors and UK households whose fixed-rate deals have to be renewed in 2024 could find themselves having to shell out considerably more in debt servicing costs, which will take the edge off activity. Whether or not the US or UK experiences a recession is less important than the likelihood that growth will be considerably slower in 2024 than in 2023.

The outlook for the Chinese economy will play a crucial role in determining the global growth outcome. It is becoming more evident that the old playbook of throwing money at an economy suffering from years of investment misallocation will no longer work. Bubbles in the property market, with the near-collapse of Evergrande and the default of Country Garden, are symptomatic of a bubble economy gone wrong. With demographics increasingly not running in China’s favour, and the population declining in 2022 for the first time since 1961, dare we whisper it but China is suffering from many of the symptoms of the Japanese bubble economy of the early-1990s. The economy will not collapse any time soon, but we should get used to annual growth with a 4-handle rather than something bigger than six.

And the politics

2024 is shaping up to be a big year for elections and they do not come any bigger than the US Presidential election which takes place in November. It seems almost certain that we will see a rematch of Trump versus Biden, barring the intervention of the courts or unforeseen health issues. I would not like to put my money on who will win, although for the record the bookies currently offer shorter odds on Trump. However, one thing is certain: This will be one of the nastiest election campaigns ever fought. It is not too much of an overstatement to suggest that the future of the western alliance hinges on Biden getting back into the White House. Europe has already experienced the capricious nature of Trump’s foreign policy and America’s global standing would not emerge well from a second Trump presidency if he uses his term to settle old scores.

This is particularly problematic in view of rising geopolitical tensions: The Russia-Ukraine war will enter its third year in February and a Trump presidency would seriously imperil the flow of materiel to Ukraine (although this would likely only become an issue in 2025). Similarly, the Israel-Hamas war will require deft diplomacy to prevent it spilling over into a wider regional conflict. Just because it did not immediately ignite following the events of October 2023 does not mean that the risk of a wider war in 2024 can be ignored. Then there is the China-Taiwan problem. Later this month, the Taiwanese presidential election is expected to see Lai Ching-te (aka William Lai) of the Democratic Progressive Party elected to the presidency. In the past Lai has been aggressively pro-Taiwan (and by definition, anti-China). Although he is likely to be more circumspect in his comments as president, he is distrusted by China and we can expect a ratcheting up of pressure from Beijing. This will be a further headache for the US policy establishment, which will be distracted by electoral considerations in 2024.

The US election is not the only game in town: There will also be plebiscites in a number of important economies such as India, Indonesia and South Korea. It is also highly likely that there will be an election in the UK. Although legally it does not have to take place until January 2025, the smart money is on an autumn 2024 election with one prominent Labour politician recently suggesting that it was “the worst kept secret in Westminster” that a contest would be called for May. The result is rather easier to call than in the US – there is almost certain to be a change of government in the UK in 2024. Much of the discussion centres on how big Labour’s majority will be. Electoral Calculus reckons that Labour will gain a 133 seat majority which would be way bigger than Tony Blair’s government achieved in the 1997 landslide win (an 88 seat majority). For the record, I do not think that Labour will come remotely close to such a majority. In order for this to happen, the Conservatives’ vote would have to halve and Labour’s spike to record highs. I would be amazed if the majority is as high as 50 and would not be surprised if it was as low as 10 seats.

Markets in 2024

2023 was a better year for investors than 2022, when returns on both bonds and equities were negative. A so-so 2023 was transformed in the last couple of months when the S&P500 rallied by 14%, delivering a 27% return for the year – the best since 2019. Global fixed income also ended the year up 6%, having been down 4% in mid-October. The catalyst for the surge was expectations of US rate cuts in 2024 which, if delivered in line with expectations, suggests that most of the good news is already in the price. Doubtless the momentum will continue over the early weeks of 2024 and markets will exult that bonds really are back. If the US economy manages a soft landing, as is increasingly anticipated, there is scope for equities to go higher still. My own view, for what it is worth, is that the bulk of the gains will be generated in the first half and it may pay to go defensive later in the year as the rally runs out of steam.

What else?

AI was one of the buzzwords of 2023 and there will be further developments in 2024. Although ChatGPT proved to be a phenomenal success, and was one of the catalysts behind the rally in US stocks, its ability to generate plausible-sounding feedback that is often untrue means that corporates remain wary of its full-scale adoption. New iterations of LLMs are likely to be released in 2024 which will offer significant improvements in information veracity and verifiability. This in turn may encourage more widespread adoption. Reports that OpenAI is working on a powerful new tool known as Q* may take AI to another level. Nobody knows for sure what Q* is, or how it works, but these posts (here and here) suggest that it could herald a revolutionary breakthrough in the way AI handles mathematical problems. This will open up a whole new range of applications and intensify the debate about how much control we are prepared to cede to the machines.

While on the subject of matters tech, one thing to look out for in 2024 is the prospect that Twitter (sorry, X) goes bust. As I pointed out in April 2022 “the financials of Musk’s Twitter deal do not look compelling.” They look a lot less compelling today, with Musk desperate to turn a profit on his ill-advised venture into social media. As usage numbers fall and advertisers desert the platform, it would come as no surprise if Musk were to seek a buyer at a knock-down price, especially as Tesla is no longer pulling up trees when it comes to its own finances.

But as I have been telling investors for years, it’s the unknown unknowns that get you. The whole narrative could be thrown off course by a random event (Covid or Russian invasion, anyone?) so it pays to take year-ahead predictions with a big pinch of salt. As long as they are not blown off-course before end-January, I will be happy. And on that note, I will end by wishing you all a happy and prosperous new year.

Quantum of Solace

It was Christmas in the physics faculty. Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg and Albert Einstein were debating the meaning of the festive season.

“I’m telling you, Albert, it is perfectly possible for Santa Claus to be able to deliver presents all over the world in one night,” said Heisenberg. “We know very well from quantum physics that it is possible for particles to exist in different places at once.”

“That is as maybe”, said Einstein, “but as you well know I am extremely sceptical about many aspects of quantum physics. And in any case, isn’t it the case that only tiny particles can display such properties? Imagine the chaos if we could have multiple Boris Johnsons scattered throughout the galaxy.”

“To your first point, Albert, quantum mechanics has passed every test we have managed to throw at it,“ chimed Pauli. “And in any case, it is experimentally possible to create large quantum objects that can be seen with the naked eye. After all, the only thing that in theory acts to prevent the superposition of large visible objects is the theoretical postulate that a background noise field exists to prevent the emergence of a quantum state. If such a background field exists, it would give off heat and we would be able to detect it. Admittedly, it is a lot less heat even than in the coldest of fridges so it is possible that we just don’t have sufficiently sensitive instruments but recent research from Australia supports the hypothesis that this background field does not exist. That being the case, if we think of Santa as a large collection of particles, there is nothing to stop him simultaneously existing at different places at the same time.”

“And what about all those reindeer? Do they exist in a quantum superstate as well? Even if I accept the premise that a quantum Santa exists, is it really possible to generate eight quantum reindeer at the same time?” asked Einstein.

“Natürlich mein lieber Albert,” replied Pauli. “How do you think Rudolph gets his red nose? It’s the friction associated with travelling faster than the speed of light. Of course, Santa gets a lot of help. His distribution network is second only to Amazon. Imagine what a force they would be if they could get the quantum delivery part to work. As it is, I hear they are struggling to devise a quantum computer than can add one plus one.”

“This is all very interesting, Wolfgang, but has anyone actually seen Santa?” asked Einstein.

“Oh yes, I saw them in concert at Woodstock,” responded Heisenberg, who by now had started on the eggnog.

“Nein, you idiot. That was Santana,” interjected Pauli.

“Of course. Mind you, the stuff we were smoking in ’69 it felt as though we were in a number of different places at once. I was in outer space, man,” said Heisenberg. “I was feeling, how do you say, a little wigged.”

“I am glad you take it all so seriously, Werner”, said Einstein, sarcastically. “But going back to my original point, if you can generate a quantum Santa, why not a quantum Hitler, or Boris Johnson?”

Heisenberg, who at this point was feeling decidedly the worse for wear slurred, “Well maybe Taylor Swift is a quantum creation. She seems to be everywhere these days. And didn’t she once sing a song called Blank Space? How would she know unless she’s been there?”

Einstein was becoming increasingly disinterested in the conversation with his fellow physicists. His attempts to engage his intellectual peers had degenerated into bar room discussion, and he was quite glad when Heisenberg dragged Pauli away to form a conga line. Seeking to raise the intellectual tone, Einstein hailed the economist Paul Samuelson who happened to be passing.

“What on earth are you doing at the physics Christmas party?” asked Einstein.

“Well Albert, since much of my economic theory was based around the mathematics used in the analysis of physics, I feel right at home,” replied Samuelson. “And don’t forget that the heat transfer equations form the basis of options pricing models, so there is a lot of crossover between physics  and economics.”

“In that case, maybe as an economist you can shed some light on the meaning of Christmas. It’s not like my fellow physicists seem to offer much enlightenment”, said Einstein.

Samuelson thought for a minute and started to respond: “As you know, it’s the most important time of the year for the retail trade, when the bulk of toy sales occur and when the entertainment industry makes a great deal of money. We give each other gifts, whose utility is questionable, and we engage in a vastly complex process of income-constrained decision making under uncertainty. I want a Bentley, my wife gives me socks. She knows I want a Bentley, but she can’t afford one and knows I will settle for socks. In return, I will give my wife the perfume that she told me last year she didn’t like which she will add to the collection on her dressing table. There must be five bottles of the stuff by now.”

“Then, of course, there is a long tradition of hosting the in-laws, inviting them round for the traditional dinner. This in turn, is a minimax strategy, in which we provide the least unacceptable culinary option for people with different dietary tastes and requirements. Or is it a maximin strategy? No, it’s minimax; maximin is a former footballer with Newcastle United.”

Einstein took a drag on his pipe. “Ah yes, the relatives. One of the most difficult of all problems to solve. I did have a crack at solving that once – you might have heard of my Theory of Relatives. One of the most important findings was that time changes according to circumstances. A couple of hours playing charades with Uncle Bertram seems like a lifetime.”

“Still, I mustn’t keep you, Paul. I know you have important things to do. Just one thing before you go. As an economist, you must spend time thinking about philosophical matters. Have you read Marx.”

“As a matter of fact I have”, replied Samuelson as he hauled himself to his feet. “It must be these wicker chairs.”

A Merry Christmas to you and yours.

The (un)changing face of politics

Although I have tried hard to steer clear of politics on this blog over the last year or so in order to focus on the economics, in many ways the two subjects are intertwined. The onset of the global financial crisis in 2008 raised a number of questions that politicians have failed to answer, with the result that the discontent which was already bubbling under the surface spilled out in ways that mainstream politicians have been unable to counter. Populists and authoritarians have had a field day, giving us Orban in Hungary; the Law and Justice Party (PiS) in Poland, not to mention Trump in the US and the Brexit crowd on this side of the pond. But the complexities of real life conspire to confound the simple appeal of many populists, with the result that PiS is a diminished (though still important) force in Polish politics; Trump is out of office (for now) and the gang of zealots that inflicted Brexit upon the UK seem to be fading away into the background.

Indeed, for a long time the British government has appeared to be drifting inexorably to the right, engaging in culture war rhetoric rather than attempting to tackle some of the bigger economic and social problems facing the UK. The sacking of Home Secretary Suella Braverman (the reasons for which you can read here) perhaps marks a watershed as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak realises that the further towards the fringes his party goes, the less likely they are to escape a major trouncing at the next general election, which is expected to be held anytime in the next 6-12 months. The surprise return of former PM David Cameron as Foreign Secretary is the big news, both at home and abroad, and is a sure sign that Sunak is attempting to drag his party back towards the centre before it is too late. If nothing else, it may reassure Tory voters in the shires who have increasingly found the current incarnation of the party unpalatable.

Whether or not Cameron will be the right person to convince the electorate is moot. After all, he is widely blamed for losing the Brexit referendum and ushering in a series of prime ministers who proved themselves more inept than their predecessor (Sunak broke that trend, although he did follow Liz Truss, whose main claim to fame in the eyes of many voters is that she was outlasted by a lettuce). And in an irony that has not gone unnoticed on social media, since Cameron is no longer an MP, he can only enter government by sitting in the House of Lords and cannot be held to account by the House of Commons. Remind me again, but wasn’t one of the benefits of Brexit that we could get rid of unelected bureaucrats?

While it is certainly possible – indeed likely – that changing the composition of his government will allow Sunak to eat into Labour’s polling lead, which has averaged 19 points over the past year (chart above), will voters be sufficiently pacified to draw a line under the last seven years of chaos? If the evidence which is emerging from the Covid inquiry is any guide, Conservative politicians of recent years have a lot to answer for. The tales of incompetence which emerged under Boris Johnson’s leadership will not easily be forgiven or forgotten, highlighting the extent to which governance has been compromised. The Truss government’s short-lived but chaotic tenure severely damaged the Conservatives’ reputation for economic competence while politically contentious decisions such as the cancellation of the northern leg of the HS2 rail project will do little to convince voters in the north that the Conservatives deserve another term in office.

It's the economy stupid

It is only four years since the last election and a lot of water has since flowed under the bridge. But one of the great consistencies of the intervening period has been the Conservative government’s failure to interpret the electorate’s mood in 2019. It did not win a huge mandate because the electorate was concerned about immigration or “wokeism” but rather because it wanted an end to the Brexit wrangling, which Johnson promised, and because Jeremy Corbyn was viewed as an unelectable leader of the opposition.

Matters have been compounded by the fact that the government has failed to deliver on its levelling up agenda – not altogether a problem of its own making, since the pandemic drove a coach and horses through that policy. It has also presided over the fastest rate of inflation in four decades – again the result of forces outside its control. However, it has doubled down on Brexit despite evidence that this is an increasingly unpopular policy, and voter satisfaction with the NHS has fallen to record lows, which is increasingly blamed on government policy (some of which is fair criticism, some of which is not).

Brexit is not to blame for many of the economic ills that the UK now faces, although it does compound them. Dissatisfaction over the state of public services is to a large extent the consequence of the austerity policy introduced by the Cameron government, which resulted in a two percentage point decline in the central government contribution to local authority financing (chart above). Increased unhappiness over the provision of services by public utilities is partly due to a lack of private sector investment following the privatisation of many of these utilities in the 1980s and 1990s. A policy of less government and more private sector involvement is thus not perceived by voters to be acting in their best interests. The debate is obviously more complex than that, but as I have pointed out many times before, the UK cannot afford to operate the same economic model as it did between 1979 and the onset of the GFC in 2008. Demographics are increasingly a headwind and there is no North Sea oil to fund tax cuts. Like all western economies, the UK looks set to experience a sharp slowdown in growth and a commensurate slowdown in the pace at which living standards improve.

As we look ahead to the next election, the party that does best will be the one that has a credible plan to tackle many of the UK’s underlying economic ills. How this will be done is a subject for another time. But changing government personnel does not sound like the game-changer that the UK needs. Forget culture wars and wokeism – the next election will be fought against the backdrop of the economy. Or as Bill Clinton’s strategist James Carville put it in 1992: “it’s the economy stupid”.