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Three IMF analyses of the Greek crisis
To see where things have gone wrong, it is helpful to follow three IMF studies:
In its famous mea culpa for delaying the restructuring of Greek debt, the IMF acknowledged a well-respected academic tradition (IMF 2013). The ‘debt-overhang’, as economists term it, inhibits new investment and growth. For this reason, it is in the interests of creditors as well as debtors to forgive debt (for an early statement, see Krugman 1988). [...]
Some might say that Greece does not have a debt overhang. With the ultra-low interest rates on its official debt, Greece, it is argued, can repay its debt without sacrificing growth and reasonable social objectives. But even under the troika’s calculations, the conclusion that Greece can comfortably pay back its debts is true only on the assumption that Greece will increase its primary surpluses. The troika’s demands earlier this year were for an extraordinary ramp up in primary surpluses—from a small negative number to over 4% of GDP. That demand has been steadily scaled down over the past few months. But even now, the troika requirement is that the surpluses increase by about 1 percentage point of GDP a year for the next three years. To achieve that goal would require a contraction of discretionary spending well above 1% of GDP a year. That, by any definition, is significant fiscal austerity, coming on top of an extraordinary austerity over the past five years.
That leads to the second set of IMF analyses.
Here is how this principle applies today to Greece. Recall that prices in Greece have been falling for about two years now. Since debt repayment obligations do not change when businesses sell at lower prices or when wages fall, businesses and households struggle to repay their debt in a deflationary environment. Investment and consumption are held back, the government receives less revenue, making its debt repayment harder. If austerity is imposed in this deflationary setting, the weaker demand forces prices and wages down faster, making debt repayment even harder. This is the so-called debt-deflation cycle. Greece is in a debt-deflation cycle.
For this reason, increasing the VAT tax burden, for example, is a terrible idea. Japan—which, despite its troubles, is an infinitely stronger economy than Greece—only recently got its wind knocked out by a premature increase in VAT rates. To be sure, the VAT rates will eventually need to be raised, and pensions and wages will need to be scaled back. But setting a demanding timeline now—before growth is firmly established—will keep Greece trapped in a debt-deflation cycle. The debt-to-GDP ratio, which was about 130% of GDP when the Greek crisis began in 2009 has risen to about 180%, and will keep rising.
Thus, the third element of the troika strategy, namely that Greece should do structural reforms and spur growth even while it does ‘growth-friendly’ austerity. These are soothing terms. So, consider the third piece of IMF evidence.
Indeed, where structural reforms are a code phrase for reducing wages and weakening employment contracts—as they are in the Greek context—we circle back to the immediate problem of curtailing demand in an already deflationary environment. But even the long-term growth benefits of these measures are unclear. With lower wages comes lower productivity. Both economic theory and evidence support this concern. And Germany’s much vaunted success came not from suppressing wages but from corporate-labour agreements to outsource labour-intensive tasks to lower-wage economies while German manufacturers upgraded their technology (Dustmann et al. 2014). The IMF’s analysis finds that investing in R&D to raise productivity in the information technology industries may have a long-term pay off. But that will be reaped over decades not in time to extricate Greece from its debt-deflation cycle.
Finally, those calling for throwing Greece out of the Eurozone (Financial Times, June 2015) must confront Barry Eichengreen’s essay on the costs of breaking up the Eurozone (Eichengreen 2010). Eichengreen warns that a Greek exit could have consequences for the European and global economy that would dwarf the panic following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers.
A suggested programme for Greece
So what should a Greek programme look like? The objective should be to return Greece to the financial markets in a phased manner. Following the medical analogy, the objective should be to get Greece out of the emergency room, work through rehab, and then resume as normal an existence as it can. To that end, the key elements of a Greek programme must be:
With this preparation and its low debt obligations, Greece will be able to tap markets. To those concerned that Greece will return to its bad ways, the new debt should be in the form of sovereign cocos (Mody 2013), which will contractually provide for standstills on repayments if debt exceeds 75% of GDP. The standstill provision will limit Greek access to markets and raise the costs of borrowing. Greece will learn to live within its means. This would be like Greece training for a 5K race.
If that goes well, then the Greeks can decide if they want to run a marathon, in which case they will need to change their social contract. How they do that—through reduced pensions, lower wages, increased VAT, or through more effort to rein in Greek oligarchs—is a matter for the Greeks to decide. An international consortium, backed by hysterical media, cannot micromanage Greece. The Greeks may well choose to let their standard of living gradually decline. That will be their choice.