Economics & Global Affairs

Since its introduction two decades ago, the euro has faced serious challenges. So far, it has survived intact. Yet, on the common currency’s 20th anniversary, it is worth identifying problems that have been encountered and, one hopes, to learn from past mistakes.

I realize that compiling a list of one’s own past forecasts is self-indulgent.  But perhaps there are readers who will indulge me too, as I run through six predictions that – it seems to me – were mostly proven right this past year.

When President George H.W. Bush was laid to rest earlier this month, the remembrances appropriately remarked on his general decency and competence.  In public commentary, the encomiums tend to be followed by a “but.”  For journalists and historians, it is “but he was only a one-term president.”  He lost the election of 1992, in part because of the recession of 1990-91.  For members of his own political party, the “but” is, “but he broke with the legacy of Ronald Reagan and with his own ‘no new taxes’ pledge.”  They have always blamed his failure to win re-election on that perceived betrayal.

But President Bush’s mistake was making the anti-tax pledge in 1988 in the first place and sticking to it in the first part of his presidency. The 1990 reversal on fiscal policy set the stage for a decade of economic growth that eventually achieved budget surpluses.

The late president tried to tackle the budget deficit by doing a deal with Democrats to raise taxes.

Maury Obstfeld this month completes his exemplary term as Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund. His departing economic outlook foresees slowing growth in the world economy in 2019 and 2020.

Gita Gopinath, my Harvard colleague, will take up the position in the new year.  (Technically the title is Economic Counsellor and Director of the Research Department.)

The Federal Reserve has done an outstanding job fulfilling its dual mandate of maximum employment and price stability. To keep the economy in this happy Goldilocks position, the Fed should hold off on raising rates at its December meeting and consider incoming data before deciding when—or even whether—to resume tightening.

Some observers worry that higher short-term rates will push the economy into recession and wonder why the Fed is continuing to raise rates despite already having achieved its explicit monetary-policy goals. Yet that view overlooks the role that higher interest rates today must play in enabling the recovery from an inevitable future downturn. It is in the interest of the next recovery, I believe, that the Fed will continue its steady rate increases.

The European Union’s announcement in September 2018 that it would begin to create a special payments channel with Iran in response to the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) once again raises the question of the role of the U.S. Dollar (USD) in the international economic order.  Under the surface of discussions of alternative payment mechanisms is the legitimate question of the negative impacts of American coercive economic statecraft on the USD status as the leading global reserve currency.

The Trump administration is railing against Chinese currency manipulation without any regard for the yuan’s actual ups and downs. Yes, the numbers superficially back Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s warnings: The yuan has dropped about 10% against the dollar since mid-April, effectively offsetting the impact of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. But this doesn’t prove that China is defying the laws of market economics. In fact, Beijing is doing precisely the opposite.

What the Iron Man-like character is claiming for his futuristic automotive company is not unheard of. On a systemic basis, mammoth institutional investment—especially from sovereign wealth funds (SWFs)—is flowing into start-ups and technology-oriented publicly traded companies. In this case, Saudi billions would help Mr Musk escape the pressures of being publicly listed. SWFs have invested large sums into high-growth start-ups promising innovation and financial returns. In fact, just this month, Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced a US$1bn investment in Tesla’s rival, Lucid, and a US$2bn stake in Tesla. The rise in SWF balance sheets and activity is having ramifications on global efforts to be more Silicon Valley-like, and on Silicon Valley itself.