Inflation is a Monetary Phenomenon, But This Isn’t Inflation

There has been much talk recently about the potential inflation on the horizon given the unprecedented movement of the Federal Reserve of increasing the monetary base through quantitative easing. The talk has predominantly surrounded the substantial increase in the monetary base. However, increases in the monetary base are not sufficient to cause inflation. Like discussion of other markets, we must consider both supply and demand conditions.

Milton Friedman famously quipped, “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” Friedman was undoubtedly correct. However, recently a few seem to have taken this claim to mean something different entirely. Namely, that any increase in the money supply necessarily causes inflation. This is something that Friedman himself did not believe.

In his restatement of the quantity theory of money, Friedman pointed out that the quantity theory is primarily a theory of money demand. Specifically, quantity theorists view the level of real money balances as more important than the nominal quantity of money. Thus, if at any point in time people have chosen to hold some level of real money balances that they deem optimal, an increase in the nominal money supply will leave these individuals with a larger level of real money balances than they wish to hold. These individuals will then necessarily try to reduce their holdings of nominal money balances such that their real money balances fall back to their optimal level (perhaps by increasing spending). Unfortunately, as a group, they will not be able to do so because every person’s spending is another person’s receipt (or income). Initially output will increase and gradually prices will rise until the level of real balances falls back to the optimal level.

Given this discussion, it should not be difficult to understand why I prefer a monetary equilibrium framework. What’s more, it should be apparent that what causes inflation is not an increase in the money supply, but rather an excess supply of money.

Ultimately, the question at hand is whether the current increases in the monetary base imply that there is an excess supply for money. If so, inflation is on the horizon. If not, we need not fear inflation.

Personally, I do not believe that the recent increases in base money imply that there is an excess supply of money. There are a couple reasons for this belief. First, it has been well-known — at least among monetarists — since Clark Warburton’s influential work that the peaks in the time series variables important for quantity theorists follow this order: (1) money, (2) output, and (3) velocity. The implication here is that declines in velocity (increases in the demand for money) are an accentuating feature of the business cycle. In other words, after output begins to fall, the demand for money increases. As our previous discussion of monetary equilibrium implies, this creates an excess demand for money, which results in falling output and prices — thereby exacerbating the previous decline in output.

Second, the money multiplier has declined drastically. In fact, the money multiplier for M1 remains below 1. This means that for every increase of $1 in base money, the money supply (as measured by M1) increases by less than $1. In order to determine the cause of the decline in the M1 multiplier, we should first discuss its components. The money multiplier for M1 consists of the currency-to-deposit ratio, the required reserve-to-deposit ratio, and the excess reserve-to-deposit ratio. An increase in any of these ratios implies that the money multiplier will fall. The required reserve ratio is set by the Federal Reserve and has not changed. Thus, the decline in the M1 multiplier must be the result of changes in the currency-to-deposit ratio and the excess reserve ratio. As previously mentioned, the demand for money often increases during the downturn in the business cycle. What’s more, financial crises often induce a flight to quality in which individuals abandon risky investments for safe investments such as bonds or cash. The increase in cash balances increases the currency-to-deposit ratio.

The largest cause of the decline in the money multiplier, however, is the result of the increase in the level of excess reserves. What’s more, this increase in excess reserves can be directly attributed to the fact that the Federal Reserve started paying interest on excess reserves late last year. In doing so, the Fed essentially reduced the opportunity cost of holding excess reserves thereby giving banks the incentive to hold more reserves on their balance sheets. This is why our friend Scott Sumner not only supports eliminating the interest payments on excess reserves, but prefers that the Fed impose a penalty on those who hold reserves above the required level.

Ultimately, the money multiplier (M1) has fallen from around 1.6 prior to the recession to .93 as of June 17. At the beginning of January 2008, the monetary base was roughly $848 billion. Given that money multiplier, this would suggest that M1 was around $1.356 trillion. Thus, given the current money multiplier, this would suggest that the monetary base would have to be about $1.458 trillion today to maintain the same money supply — an increase of roughly 72%. Given that we are currently in a recession, this suggests that the Fed wants to increase the money supply rather than simply maintain the earlier level. Given that the monetary base is about 90% higher than it was at this time last year, this would suggest that the Fed is expansionary, but hardly over-expansionary given the circumstances surrounding money demand.

With that being said, the Fed must be careful and begin pulling money out of the economy when this demand for base money subsides and the money multiplier begins to rise again. A failure to do so would result in a substantial period of inflation. However, at the current time, the evidence suggests that the massive increase in the monetary base is justified by the increase in the demand for base money. Thus, the increase is in the monetary base doesn’t suggest that massive inflation is on the horizon … yet.

(In the future, I hope to post on how the Fed can prevent finding itself in such a precarious situation in the future, but this is clearly enough for now.)

Should We Fear Rising Bond Yields?

There seems to be some concern as to the rising yields on long-term bonds. Our friend Jimmy P. (now of Reuters) quotes Scott Grannis, who writes:

The Fed is trying to fight a force of nature—the bond market—and they are bound to lose. Purchasing long-maturity Treasuries, mortgage-backed securities or corporate bonds in an to keep their yields low is a self-defeating strategy … Ultimately, inflation and inflation expectations are what drive bond yields. If the Fed buys too many bonds, rising inflation expectations will kill the world’s demand to own bonds, and yields will rise. … So far this year, the yield on 10-year Treasuries has risen from 2.05% to 3.4%, and that is just a down payment on the eventual rise.

This presents two interesting questions:

1. Is the Fed trying to lower long-term rates?

2. Are rising long-term rates a bad thing?

I think that the answer to (1) is ‘no’. Counter to what seems to be the conventional wisdom, I believe that the Fed is buying long-term bonds because because short-term bonds and cash having largely been near perfect substitutes for quite some time. Thus replacing an asset that banks are gladly holding at near zero yield for an asset that earns zero yield isn’t likely to create the proper incentive to expand the money supply and stimulate economic activity. Buying the longer term debt, on the other hand, serves the purpose of creating the incentive to replace said debt with something that earns a return, thereby promoting lending and monetary expansion. What’s more this monetary expansion, if successful (or, more appropriately, credible) will begin to create an increase in inflation expectations, reduce the real interest, and therefore create demand for investment.

This latter point brings us to question number 2.

I similarly think that the answer to (2) is ‘no’ as well (or at least ‘not yet’). The creation of inflation expectations will temporarily lower the real interest rate, but as these expectations become more widespread the nominal interest rates will start to creep up. The recent increase in nominal rates is seen by some (including Scott Grannis, above) to be a sign that investors are worried about inflation. I am not convinced that this is the case for two reasons.

First, the nominal rates on bonds have been at historically low levels for some time. These low rates are largely the result of expectations of deflation and, more importantly, the flight to quality. Given this diagnosis, it is not surprising that these longer term bond yields have started to rise. Indeed, Martin Wolf (HT: David Beckworth) notes:

The jump in bond rates is a desirable normalisation after a panic. Investors rushed into the dollar and government bonds. Now they are rushing out again. Welcome to the giddy world of financial markets.

At the end of December 2008, US 10-year Treasury yields fell to the frighteningly low level of 2.1 per cent from close to 4 per cent in October (see chart). Partly as a result of this fall and partly because of a surprising rise in the yield on inflation-protected bonds (Tips), implied expected inflation reached a low of close to zero. The deflation scare had become all too real.

What has happened is a sudden return to normality: after some turmoil, the yield on conventional US government bonds closed at 3.5 per cent last week, while the yield on Tips fell to 1.9 per cent. So expected inflation went to a level in keeping with Federal Reserve objectives, at close to 1.6 per cent. Much the same has happened in the UK, with a rise in expected inflation from a low of 1.3 per cent in March to 2.3 per cent. Fear of deflationary meltdown has gone.

The most important point to take away from this is that inflation expectations are in line with rates in which the Federal Reserve is quite comfortable. Thus, I am not trying to argue that rising inflation expectations have played no role in the rising bond yields, but rather than these increases are the result of a return to normal conditions (hence my reason for offering the qualification ‘not yet’).

The second reason that I remain unconcerned about the rising yields is that the phenomenon is not unique to the United States. One of the main points underlying the inflation expectation concerns is that the Federal Reserve will monetize some of the growing debt (or similarly about the risk of default). However, if increases in bond yields were the result of the growing budget deficit and debt, then one would expect to see such increases in the United States, but not countries with relatively small deficits. With that being said, Stephen Gordon’s recent comparison of the yields on Canadian and U.S. bonds throws a wet blanket on this hypothesis. He notes:

As we all know, Canada’s deficit and debt picture resembles in no way that of the US. But a US recovery is a sufficient (although perhaps not necessary) condition for a Canadian recovery.

If investors were suddenly concerned about default, it’s hard to see why Canadian bond yields should be affected in the same way that US yields would be. But if investors are anticipating a US recovery that would spill over to Canada, then we would expect long-term interest rates in both countries to increase.

Thus, like Gordon, I would argue that the rising yields are a good thing as they seem to indicate a return to normalcy rather than runaway inflation expectations. This is also a sign that the Fed’s policy of quantitative easing is working (at least in terms of what I believe to be the Fed’s goals).

In Search of Monetary Stability

I have been discussing a multitude of issues including quantitative easing, Ricardian Equivalence, and the current state of monetary policy with Scott Sumner over the in comments of his excellent blog and it has given me the inspiration to provide a more thorough outline of my thinking.

I think that the best way to think about money is, as Leland Yeager might say, in terms of monetary equilibrium. In other words, if we view money as being just one other good in a Walrasian general equilibrium model, then an excess demand (supply) of money is accompanied by an excess supply (demand) of goods and services. Thus, maintaining monetary equilibrium is essential to achieving economic stability. What’s more, the particular problem with an excess demand (or supply) of money is that money has no market of its own. Or as Keynes would say, labor cannot be shifted away from the production of goods where there is an excess supply to the manufacture of money. Further, the fact that money does not have a market of its own implies that an excess demand (supply) of money will have an impact on all markets because money is a medium of exchange.

My view here is not unique. In fact, Nick Rowe recently wrote an excellent post on this very topic that rightfully referenced the work of Robert Clower. The central point is that individuals have notional demands for money, goods, and services. Notional demand is understood as the intended demand. Thus, suppose for example that everyone arrives at some centralized market with their own plans for consumption and ultimate real money balances. If there is an excess demand for say lemonade, individuals can bid up the price of lemonade and the market will clear. If the excess demand is for money, however, there exists no price to adjust to clear the market and the effective demand for goods and services will fall short of supply.

A very simple way to think about monetary equilibrium is in the context of the equation of exchange:

MV = PY

where M is money, V is velocity, P is the price level, and Y is real output. Thus, M is the supply of money and V can be seen as the demand for money. (A particular note: velocity is understood as the number of times that the average dollar — or other medium of account* — is turned over. Thus an decrease in velocity reflects an increase in the demand for money.) Monetary equilibrium therefore implies that the product MV should be constant (and thus so should nominal GDP, or PY. Keep in mind that this is a static analysis).

The maintenance of monetary equilibrium essentially implies that monetary policy should be aimed at satisfying money demand (or nominal income) rather than the price level (as is currently the case). Thus, in a growing economy, the price level should actually be falling as increases in real output and productivity put downward pressure on prices. This type of thinking loosely forms the basis for what George Selgin calls the productivity norm. Such a maintenance of monetary equilibrium has a rich history in the course of economic thought (see Selgin, 1995).

So how does this framework relate to the current situation? Scott Sumner believes that the current recession could have been avoided using a nominal income target (more specifically, using nominal income futures targeting). I am not sure that I agree with this assertion, but it does fit with this framework. Allow me to explain.

If Sumner is correct, then (using our simple equation of exchange model) anticipations of lower nominal income would be reflected in an increase in the demand for money or a decrease in spending (a fall in V). (Alternatively, it is possible that the increase in the demand for money could be an exogenous event such as described by Keynes when there is an increase in uncertainty.) If the central bank was targeting nominal income, they would respond by increasing the money supply to offset the fall in velocity such that nominal income remains at the target level.

Sumner, however, likes to view this phenomenon through the lens of nominal income and expectations rather than through a monetary equilibrium framework (or at least that is my impression). Thus, in his mind, the nominal income target signals to economic agents that the Federal Reserve will do everything that it can to make sure that nominal income does not fall. If the Fed is credible on this point, then nominal income will not fall because people expect the Fed to follow through on this promise. I actually think that my view of monetary equilibrium is consistent with this view, but that Sumner simply has a different way of describing the policy.

In any event, Sumner has recently expressed his concern with the productivity norm view because (as I understand it) he is concerned with nominal wage rigidity. Thus, the falling prices implied by the productivity norm might actually produce malign effects. He would prefer a broader idea of a nominal income target. He might be correct, but I do not share this concern about wage rigidity. The reason is because wage rigidity should only be a concern when prices are falling due to adverse aggregate demand shocks. Falling prices due to productivity advances should have no effect on the nominal wage. In fact, rising productivity should be consistent with higher real wages (in this case due to falling prices). In any event, one need not worry about this problem under the current circumstances because the decline in nominal income is the result of a severe adverse aggregate demand shock.

I am inclined to think that nominal income targeting is certainly more desirable than the current regime. However, the ultimate question is whether or not the current situation could have been avoided under a nominal income targeting regime. Scott Sumner believes that we could have avoided the recession and simply experienced a burst of the housing bubble had we followed a nominal income target. I actually think that we might not have even had a housing bubble if we had a nominal income target (that allows for falling prices). In any event, the current situation has raised interesting questions about the state of monetary policy and monetary stability. Hopefully, we will also stumble upon some of the answers.

* “Money is here called a medium and not, as customary, a unit of account because, clearly, money itself is not a unit, but the good whose unit is used as the unit of account” Niehans (1978).

Bernanke pushes the accelerator

From the FOMC statement:

In these circumstances, the Federal Reserve will employ all available tools to promote economic recovery and to preserve price stability. The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and anticipates that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period. To provide greater support to mortgage lending and housing markets, the Committee decided today to increase the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet further by purchasing up to an additional $750 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities, bringing its total purchases of these securities to up to $1.25 trillion this year, and to increase its purchases of agency debt this year by up to $100 billion to a total of up to $200 billion. Moreover, to help improve conditions in private credit markets, the Committee decided to purchase up to $300 billion of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months. The Federal Reserve has launched the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility to facilitate the extension of credit to households and small businesses and anticipates that the range of eligible collateral for this facility is likely to be expanded to include other financial assets. The Committee will continue to carefully monitor the size and composition of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet in light of evolving financial and economic developments.

[Emphasis added.]

The Government, Housing, and The Crisis

It is time to weigh in on some important topics with respect to the current financial crisis. First, I think it needs to be noted that the crisis has already had many stages, each of which likely need to be discussed individually. They can loosely be classified as follows:

1.) The housing bubble (or “How we got here…”)

2.) The bursting of the housing bubble, the increased perception of risk, the fall of Bear Stearns, and the expansion of Federal Reserve power (sorry I couldn’t make this pithy).

3.) Financial market mayhem.

4.) The Hank Paulson Variety Show. (My thoughts here and here.)

Over at Cato Unbound the crisis is being debated by the likes of Lawrence White, Brad DeLong, and Casey Mulligan. Each makes particularly intriguing points, but the main point that I would like to address is in regards to the stages of the crisis. We seem to have gotten to the point where everyone is talking past one another because each is talking about a separate stage of the crisis. For example, White’s essay clearly outlines the incentives put forth by the government that contributed to the housing boom. DeLong, however, counters that White is not addressing the important issue and that he even gets the one he is discussing wrong. I think that there are elements of each of their essays that are correct, but I do not agree with DeLong that they are mutually exclusive.

White is largely concerned with stage 1 listed above. His essay (helps) explain the cause of the housing bubble, but is quite vague on the impact of the economic shock created by its collapse. DeLong is primarily concerned with stages 2 and 3, or in other words the impact of the economic shock. Further, he asserts that government intervention and monetary policy explain little about the shock.

Let’s take this point-by-point. First with regard to monetary policy. DeLong asks:

Are we supposed to believe that $200 billion of open-market purchases by the Fed drives private agents into making $8 trillion of privately unprofitable loans?

This is somewhat misleading. As our friend David Beckworth points out,

The absolute dollar size of the [open market purchase], however, is not important. What is important is whether these increases in liquidity were excessive relative to the demand for them. One only needs to look at the negative real federal funds rate that persisted over this period to see that these injections were excessive.

I think that Beckworth hits the nail on the head here. These injections were clearly excessive as is evident from White’s chart in his Cato policy paper, in which he compares the actual federal funds rate to that which would be predicted by the Taylor Rule. Further, recent research has shown that low interest rates cause banks to lower their lending standards. These would seem to suggest that monetary policy played in important role in causing the economic shock.

This brings us to the second point in this discussion: did government intervention cause the housing bubble? I believe that the answer is both yes and no. I am on record in saying that Fannie and Freddie (see here and here) did not cause the crisis. In fact, if you read Stephen Cecchetti’s excellent discussion of the early part of the crisis, you will notice that private securitization of mortgage debt was growing much faster than that of the GSEs in the early part of this decade. Nonetheless, I believe that government policy did play a minor role in creating the housing boom (as I will discuss below).

As previously mentioned, monetary policy seems to have played a crucial role in the financial crisis. However, the fact that monetary policy stoked the fire says little about why all of this money flowed into housing. I think that there are two main culprits: (A) Securitization, and (B) Government policy; the former being a necessary condition for the latter to have a meaningful impact. Allow me to explain.

In private conversations with our friend Barry Ritholtz about these matters, he has challenged me to explain why the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) did not create a boom (or crisis) from 1977 to 2002. This is a fair point and one that I think few (if any) have failed to address. What changed in recent years is that (i) the CRA received some teeth in 1995, (ii) the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to historic lows for an extended period of time, and (iii) the increased use of private securitization. Ultimately, I think that (ii) and (iii) are the most important both in creating the economic shock and that (i) played a minor role in that the other two factors facilitated the compliance with government policy.

When government regulation is created, there is an immediate incentive to circumvent the regulation. However, the use of securitization essentially made it easier for banks to comply with CRA (by buying securitized mortgages that complied or by issuing the mortgages themselves and selling them off as part of an ABS in the future). Thus far all we have is lower bound estimates of the impact of the CRA on subprime loans, but this lower bound is decidedly not zero. As the link above indicates, a recent Fed study indicated that only about 8% of subprime loans can be correctly tied to the CRA. Nevertheless, as Lawrence White points out in that post, this ignores potential “demonstration” effects. In other words, once banks who are not required to comply with the CRA discover that other banks are making these loans somewhat successfully, they might be more inclined to enter the market to compete directly with these firms (this might explain why 75% of troubled mortgages originate from firms that are not required to comply with the CRA). In any event, however, it is unlikely that the percentage of subprime that originated directly as a result of CRA exceeds 20% and therefore must be deemed a relatively small factor.

To summarize, I believe that monetary policy and the increased use of securitization are to blame for the creation of the economic shock and the subsequent chaos in its aftermath. Nonetheless, I think that government policy does play a minor role in explaining the creation of the shock.

Krugman refutes Friedman and Schwartz…

…or so he thinks. Our friend David Beckworth points Krugman to Christina Romer’s excellent work on the Great Depression (which I have mentioned here and here).

My thoughts on Krugman’s take are in the comments on Beckworth’s site.

Fannie and Freddie: Cause or Effect?

Our friend David Beckworth writes:

(1) Fannie and Freddie (the GSEs) gained market share beginning in the 1980s from the saving institutions (presumably from the Saving & Loan debacle fall out); (2) Fannie and Freddie lost market share beginning around 2002 to the asset-backed security issuers. As noted by the above observers, this latter point supports the notion that at least some of the problems at Fannie and Freddie emerged in response to their declining market share during the housing boom. In other words, what happened to Fannie and Freddie may have been a symptom rather than a cause of the housing boom-bust cycle.

I have mentioned this before, but it is worth repeating. There is no doubt that Fannie and Freddie have played a role in elevating home prices through the subsidization that followed from the implicit guarantee of their debt by the federal government and their growth over the years. However, their share of the market declined for the better part of this decade as private issuers expanded their presence within this market. It was the pyramid schemes of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), CDOs comprised solely of CDOs (CDO-squared and subsequently CDO^n), regulatory forbearance (not solely de-regulation), the unbelievable assumptions regarding risk (see here, here, here, and here for a discussion of uncertainty) and credit default swaps, an irrational fear of deflation that caused the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates at historic lows for far too long, etc. that caused the current financial crisis.

Lehman to File Bankruptcy, BofA to Buy Merrill, UPDATED

The New York Times reports:

According to people briefed on the matter, Lehman Brothers will file for bankruptcy protection on Sunday night, in the largest failure of an investment bank since the collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert 18 years ago.

Lehman will seek to place its parent company, Lehman Brothers Holdings, into bankruptcy protection, while its subsidiaries will remain solvent while the firm liquidates its holdings, these people said. A consortium of banks will provide a financial backstop to help provide an orderly winding down of the 158-year-old investment bank. And the Federal Reserve has agreed to accept lower-quality assets in return for loans from the government.

But Lehman’s filing is unlikely to resemble those of other companies that seek bankruptcy protection. Because of the harsher treatment that federal bankruptcy law applies to financial-services firm, Lehman cannot hope to reorganize and survive as a going concern. It will instead liquidate its holdings.

In related news, while Bank of America apparently balked at the purchase of Lehman Brothers, according to The Wall Street Journal, they have agreed to purchase Merrill Lynch for $29 per share in an all stock deal:

In a rushed bid to ride out the storm sweeping American finance, 94-year-old Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed late Sunday to sell itself to Bank of America Corp. for roughly $44 billion.

The deal, which was being worked out in 48 hours of frenetic negotiating, could instantly reshape the U.S. banking landscape, making the nation’s prime behemoth even bigger. The boards of the two companies approved the deal Sunday evening, according to people familiar with the matter.

My gut feeling here is that Bank of America is overpaying for Merrill (as they did for Countrywide). However, it might (I stress might) ease some concerns in the market tomorrow as Merrill would likely have been next on the “potential failure” watch list.

This thing is NOT over yet. AIG is likely the next firm on the watch list given this report from the WSJ:

Insurer American International Group Inc., succumbing to relentless investor pressure that drove its shares down 31% on Friday alone, is pulling together a survival plan that includes selling off some of its most valuable assets, raising more capital and possibly going to the Federal Reserve for help, people familiar with the situation said.

UPDATE:

Fed Plans Expanded Lending Facilities — WSJ

WSJ: Banks Roll Out $70 Billion Loan Program:

A group of global banks and securities firms announced late Sunday a $70 billion loan program that financial companies can tap to help ease a credit shortage that threatens global financial markets.

The ten banks, which include JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said they were committing $7 billion each for the pool. The pool would act as a signal to the marketplace that banks, brokerages, and other financial companies can lean on the fund to take care of borrowing needs.

The banks said the program will be available to participating banks which can get a cash infusion up to a maximum of one-third of the total size of the pool. The size of the loan program might increase as “other banks are permitted to join.”

Treasury Announces Plan to Back Fannie and Freddie

The WSJ reports:

The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve, capping a weekend of high-stakes maneuvering, attempted to shore up confidence in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by announcing a plan that placed the federal government firmly behind the battered mortgage giants.

In a statement timed to precede the opening of Asian markets Monday, as well as a closely watched auction of debt by Freddie, the Treasury said it plans to seek approval from Congress for a temporary increase in a longstanding Treasury line of credit for the two companies.

The Treasury also said it would seek temporary authority so that it could buy equity in either company “if needed” to ensure they have “sufficient capital to continue to serve their mission” of providing a steady flow of money into home mortgages. The plan, which requires congressional approval, also calls for a provision to give the Federal Reserve a “consultative role” in the process of setting capital requirements and other “prudential standards” for Fannie and Freddie.

The Fed’s Board of Governors met Sunday in Washington and voted to grant the New York Fed authority to lend to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “should such lending prove necessary,” the central bank said in a statement. The move would effectively give the two companies access to the Fed’s discount window if necessary, providing a backstop in case the firms were to face a short-term funding crisis down the road.

Officials are hoping that, by promising bold action if needed, they can instill enough confidence in the battered companies that such intervention will ultimately prove unnecessary.

Meanwhile, James Hamilton has written an excellent post on how we got to this point.

Keynes and the Crisis

In Keynes’ General Theory, he explained that an equity market collapse could be blamed on either a weakening of confidence or of the state of credit — in modern parlance, these are referred to as “counter-party risk” and “liquidity risk” respectively. The importance of this observation, however, is given by Keynes subsequent assertion that “recovery requires the revival of both” (Keynes, 1936 [1973]: 158).

The point raised by Keynes is especially prescient given the current market turmoil. The realization that asset-backed securities were not worth what investors thought they were led to a collapse of both confidence and the state of credit. Financials were left wondering what the true size of their balance sheet was and therefore liquidity was in short supply, while simultaneously the increase in counter-party risk led these same institutions to be hesitant to lend. The result was a substantial increase in conventional measures of risk as reflected by the LIBOR-OIS spread and the TED spread as well as others. In an effort to ensure that both the collapse in confidence and of liquidity were reversed the Federal Reserve has taken drastic action. They have expanded the scope of the discount window through the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF) and have created the Term Auction Facility (TAF) to ensure that firms have the liquidity that they need. In addition, the federal funds rate was lowered precipitously to 2%. Thus, the major question is whether this has worked.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that the Federal Reserve has been moderately successful, but that they need to hold their course (i.e. not raise rates) to prevent a further exacerbation of the crisis. On the other hand, I have recently advocated a tightening of the federal funds rate in an attempt to stave off ever-growing inflationary pressures from a world awash in liquidity and therefore would like to submit the current data to closer analysis.

Currently the spread between the 3-month LIBOR (the London Interbank Offer Rate) and the Overnight Indexed Swap remains relatively high. Similarly, although the TED spread has gone down it remains elevated. In a recent paper by John Taylor and John Williams, they argue that these elevated risk spreads in the aftermath of the creation of the TAF suggests that it has not been successful. They may be correct, but I would like to float a different hypothesis. It is my view that the creation of the TAF and the subsequent creation of the PDCF have only satisfied one aspect of the recovery process, namely, an increase in liquidity. Whereas the programs increase the scope of the Federal Reserve’s role as lender of last resort thus ensuring that there is liquidity to be had, the programs have not succeeded in restoring confidence. In other words, the conventional measures of risk are reflecting counter-party risk, rather than liquidity risk. As the allusion to Keynes earlier highlights, it is not enough to start a recovery by merely providing liquidity; confidence must also be restored. Although the Fed had hoped that the creation of such programs would encourage firms to accept the same collateral, they have provided no such increase (or at least very little increase) in the state of confidence (as reflected in the still elevated conventional measures of risk).

If I am correct in my hypothesis, this would suggest that the rate cuts by the Federal Reserve have gone too far and have not contributed substantially to the increase in liquidity nor to the alleviation of the crisis. Under such circumstances, it would therefore prove prudent for the Federal Reserve to begin raising rates to stave off inflationary pressures rather than relying on others to do so. Unfortunately, my hypothesis also suggests that the crisis is here to stay for some time as the financials sort things out and until, ultimately, confidence is restored.