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By Peter Boone, Simon Johnson, and James Kwak
1) In recent months, the US economy entered a recovery phase following the severe credit crisis-induced recession of 2008-09. While slower than it should have been based on previous experience, growth has surprised on the upside in the past quarter. This will boost headline year-on-year growth above the current consensus for 2010. We estimate the global economy will grow over 4 percent, as measured by the IMF’s year-on-year headline number (their latest published forecast is for 3.9 percent), with US growth in the 3-4 percent range – calculated on the same basis.
2) But thinking in terms of these headline numbers masks a much more worrying dynamic. A major sovereign debt crisis is gathering steam in Europe, focused for now on the weaker countries in the eurozone, but with the potential to spillover also to the United Kingdom. These further financial market disruptions will not only slow the European economies – we estimate growth in the euro area will fall to around 0.5 percent Q4 on Q4 (the IMF puts this at 1.1 percent, but the January World Economic Outlook update was prepared before the Greek crisis broke in earnest) – it will also cause the euro to weaken and lower growth around the world.
3) There are some European efforts underway to limit debt crisis to Greece and to prevent the further spread of damage. But these efforts are too little and too late. The IMF also cannot be expected to play any meaningful role in the near term. Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain – a group known to the markets as PIIGS, will all come under severe pressure from speculative attacks on their credit. These attacks are motivated by fiscal weakness and made possible by the reluctance of relatively strong European countries to help out the PIIGS. (Section B below has more detail.)
4) Financial market participants buy and sell insurance for sovereign and bank debt through the credit default swap market. None of the opaqueness of the credit default swap market has been addressed since the crisis of September 2008, so it is hard to know what happens as governments further lose their credit worthiness. Generalized counter-party risk – the fear that an insurer will fail and thus bring down all connected banks – is again on the table, as it was after the collapse of Lehman.
5) Another Lehman/AIG-type situation lurks somewhere on the European continent, and again G7 (and G20) leaders are slow to see the risk. This time, given that they already used almost all their scope for fiscal stimulus, it will be considerably more difficult for governments to respond effectively if the crisis comes.
6) In such a situation, we should expect that investors scramble for the safest assets available – “cash”, which means short-term US government securities. It is not that the US has anything approaching a credible medium-term fiscal framework, but everyone else is in much worse shape.
7) Net exports have been a relative strength for the US economy over the past 12 months. This is unlikely to be the case during 2010.
8) In addition to this new round of global problems, the US consumer is beset by problems – including a debt overhang for lower income households, a soft housing market, and volatile asset prices. The savings rate is likely to fall from 2009 levels, but remain relatively high. Residential investment is hardly likely to recover in 2010 and business investment is too small to drive a recovery.
9) On a Q4-on-Q4 basis, the US will struggle to grow faster than 2 percent (the IMF forecast is for 2.6 percent). This within year pattern will likely involve a significant slowdown in the second half – although probably not an outright decline in output. The effects of fiscal stimulus will begin to wear off by the middle of the year and without a viable medium-term fiscal framework there is not much room for further stimulus – other than cosmetic “job creation” measures.
10) The Federal Reserve will start to wind down its extraordinary support programs for mortgage-backed securities, starting in the spring (although this may be delayed to some degree by international developments). The precise impact is hard to gauge, but this will not help prevent a slowdown in the second quarter.
11) On top of these issues, there is concern about the levels of capital in our banking system. The “too big to fail” banks are implicitly backed by the US government and for them the stress test of early 2009 played down the amount of capital they would need if the economy headed towards a “double-dip”-type of slowdown; the stress scenario used was far too benign. In addition, small and medium sized banks have a considerable exposure to commercial real estate, which continues to go bad.
12) Undercapitalized banks tend to be fearful and curtail lending to creditworthy potential borrowers. This may increasingly be the situation we face in 2010.
13) Emerging markets are also likely to slow in the second half of the year. Twice recently we have assessed whether these economies can “decouple” from the industrialized world (in early 2008 and at the end of 2008). In both cases, emerging markets – with their export orientation and, for some, dependence on commodity prices – were very much caught up in the dynamics of richer countries’ cycle.
14) The IMF projects global growth, 4th quarter-on-4th quarter within 2010 at 3.9 percent, i.e., the same as their year-on-year forecast. We expect it will be closer to 3 percent.
15) Over a longer time-horizon, we will probably experience a global economic boom, based on prospects in emerging markets. With our current global financial structure, this brings with it substantial systemic risks (see Section C below).
Simon Johnson's Analysis: Economist's Testimony Predicts Changes In 2010
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