Hartar Blog

As the US stock market continues to climb and reaches "record-high" levels, questions on overvaluation and bubbles become more common. Robert Shiller CAPE measure of the US stock market shows now a market that is at a higher level than during the Great Depression. The market has only been more expensive in the years 1998-2000 in the run up to the burst of the internet bubble. While high CAPE values signal potential overvaluation, one has to compare those numbers to levels of interest rates to assess whether stock prices are truly overvalued relative to other asset prices. One simple way to compare the two is to calculate the stock market risk premium implied by current levels of stock prices, earnings, nominal interest rates, expected inflation as well as expectations of future earnings growth. In previous posts I have explained in detail the data and methodology to calculate the risk premium. Below is the most updated analysis including the value of 10-year interest rates t...

In 2017 GDP growth picked up solidifying a global expansion phase that had previously been slow and erratic. The number of countries growing at rates consistent with their potential increased to levels not seen since prior to the global financial crisis. As the expansion gathers pace and, in some cases, becomes long by historical standards, it is time to wonder where the next crisis will come from and how we will deal with it. Among the many potential reasons why the world might fall into another recession there is one that is repeated very often and it is linked to the narrative we created after the 2008 crisis. We find ourselves again at a point where debt levels are at record high, asset prices are in bubble territory and the only reason why we have growth is because of the artificial support of central banks. As an example, here is Stephen Roach looking at 2018 and being worried because  "Real economies have been artificially propped up by these distorted asset prices, and gl...

In one my previous posts I looked at the stock market valuations in the US to conclude that they were in line with recent historical data. In fact the stock market looked cheap relative to most years since the mid 1980s. But that was before the US election! Since the election the stock market has gone up and interest rates have gone up as well. How do stock market valuations look like today? I follow the same methodology of the previous post and start with the Price-Earnings ratio constructed by Robert Shiller.  We know that this P/E ratio has been high relative to historical averages (today it stands above 28, a level only achieved before in the 2000 bubble or in 1929. But the P/E ratio depends on several macroeconomic variables, in particular the level of real interest rates. In my previous post I made the argument that once we correct for the level of the real interest rate the current P/E ratio looks reasonable. In particular, if we express the price of stocks as the net prese...

The OECD just published its November 2016 Global Economic Outlook .  Their projections suggest an acceleration of global growth rates in particular in countries with plans for a fiscal expansion. In the case of the US, and based on the "plans" of the Trump administration, the OECD projects an acceleration of GDP growth to 3% in 2018. I am very glad to see that the OECD is more open to the idea that a fiscal expansion might be the right policy choice in a low growth environment. I am also very happy that they are ready to admit that fiscal policy multipliers are larger than what they previously thought. But I am puzzled that they seem to ignore their previous disastrous economic policy advice. And I am even more puzzled that they are upgrading their estimates of fiscal policy multipliers (in particular for tax cuts) at the wrong time in the business cycle, when the economy must be closer to full employment. Here is the history: back in 2011 many advanced economies switched to ...

How expensive is the US stock market? Have the strong gains since the financial crisis of 2008 built yet another massive bubble that will require a correction? Some investors fear that recent stock market record levels are a sign that this is the biggest bubble ever. Of course, such a simplistic comparison of stock prices is flawed both because stock prices are nominal and therefore likely to go up over time and also because they are driven by (real) earnings which are also likely to increase as (real) GDP increases. To correct for these trends we can do a simple adjustment and look instead at the price-to-earnings ratio. I will use here the one constructed by Robert Shiller (although some ague that recently the index could be less informative because of the way earnings are being calculated ). The P/E ratio shows that the end of the 90s bubble was by far the period were stocks looked the most expensive relative to earnings. What do P/E ratios look like today? On the expensive side. W...

Last week the Bank of England lowered their interest rates. This combined with previous moves by the ECB and the Bank of Japan and the reduced probability that the US Federal Reserve will increase rates soon is a reminder that any normalization of interest rates towards positive territory among advanced economies will have to wait a few more months, or years (or decades?). The message from the Bank of England, which is not far from recent messages by the Bank of Japan or the ECB is that they could cut interest rates again if needed (or be more aggressive with QE purchases). Long-term interest rates across the world decreased even further. The current levels of long-term interest rates have made the yield curve extremely flat. And in several countries (e.g. Switzerland) interest rates at all horizons are falling into negative territory. The fact that long term interest rates is typically seen as the outcome of large purchases of assets by central banks around the world. In fact, many se...

Jean Pisani-Ferry  has written a very interesting post about the need for trusted experts in a democracy. The post addresses the criticisms that economic experts have received as a result of the Brexit vote. Quoting from his post: "Representative democracy is based not only on universal suffrage, but also on reason. Ideally, deliberations and votes result in rational decisions that use the current state of knowledge to deliver policies that advance citizens’ wellbeing." Very well said. He also brings up the point that the lack of influence of economic experts is not that different from that of other experts (as illustrated by the debates on climate science, GMOs,...). I share that view and my guess is that the mistrust of economic experts is simply more visible because of their influence (or lack of) in the political debates that tend to be a lot more present in the media than the debates on scientific issues. How to enhance the trust on experts? Not obvious, according to Pis...

The deceleration of China's GDP growth rate has been seen both as a natural transition towards more sustainable growth rates and a sign that the Chinese model of growth is coming to an end. How does this deceleration of growth rates compared to similar historical episodes for other countries? Is 6-7% a sustainable growth rate for China? Let's frame these questions in the traditional model economists use to look at growth rates of emerging and low-income economies: the convergence model (based on the work of Robert Solow). The main prediction: countries that are lagging have more opportunities for investment and they are likely to grow faster than countries at the technology frontier. Because of faster growth rates we expect to see convergence in GDP per capita. As convergence happens, growth rates will naturally slowdown to reach those of the countries at the frontier. [The theory also states that not all countries might converge to the same level of GDP per capita but let'...

From this Financial Times article : In yesterday's press conference Mario Draghi was asked about the possibility of changing the ECB's inflation target. His answer is very revealing about the extreme asymmetric nature of monetary policy these days (or at least that's how the ECB sees it). Draghi admits that the ECB is having a very difficult time reaching its target and he is now hoping this will happen by 2018. He rules out the idea of lowering the inflation target (to make reaching the target easier) because this would lead to lower inflation expectations and higher real interest rates. So what about raising the inflation target to avoid falling into the zero lower bound again (and possibly to show a stronger commitment to higher inflation)? According to Draghi it would make no sense because if they cannot reach a 2% target why would you set a higher target that you cannot reach by an even larger margin. This might be a realistic view on how asymmetric the effects of mone...

The yield curve is becoming flatter. The difference between the 10-year and 2-year government bond is now approaching 1%. The yield curve tends to get flatter when the economy reaches the end of an expansion phase and it is many times seen as a predictor of future recessions. But interest rates are not what they used to be. If short-term interest rates are stuck at zero, all the movements in the yield have to come from long-term interest rates. This is the opposite than what we have seen in previous cycles where all the action has come from short term rates. The 2-year rate is not quite zero and has been moving recently, so an interesting question is whether the yield curve is once again driven by movements in short-term rates. Not quite. Let's calculate the correlation between changes in the slope  of the yield curve (measured as 10 year minus 2 year rates) and the changes in the 2 year rate. The correlation [calculated over a 3 year window] is plotted below.   If the 10 year...

The recent disappointing performance of the world economy has been labelled as the "new mediocre" by Christine Lagarde , the "new reality" by Olivier Blanchard and the "new normal" by many others. How mediocre is global growth? The answer to this question heavily depends on the way we measure world GDP. Aggregating national GDPs can be done in two ways: using market exchange rates or using PPP (purchasing power parity). Because PPP puts larger weights on emerging markets and because these countries have shown faster growth rates in recent decades, the two measures have been diverging over time and now they offer a very different picture of the state of the world economy. Below I plot world real GDP growth rates (smoothed by taking a 7-year centered average) measured at market exchange rates and PPP (both data are produced by the IMF). During the early 80s both measures were identical because emerging markets did not grow faster than advanced economies (plu...

While the ECB and Bank of Japan are exploring negative interest rates, the US Federal Reserve is preparing us for a slow and cautious increase in short-term interest rates. Long-term rates remain at very low levels and inflation expectations have come under pressure and also remain below what they were a few months or years ago. And as this is going on markets are trying to figure out if they like low or high interest rates. And even if they decide that they like low rates, are negative rates too low? In all these debates there seems to be an unusual amount of what economists call money illusion or lack of understanding of the difference between nominal and real interest rates. This confusion, in my view, is partly motivated by the communication strategy of central banks that seem to obsess with the asymmetric nature of their inflation targets (for both the ECB and US Fed, inflation targets are defined as close but below 2%) and are not clear enough on their final goal and its timing. ...

The ECB just announced a further reduction in interest rates, extended its QE program by increasing the rate at which buys assets, beefed up the TLTRO program and extended its horizon. It all sounds like good news and many of these actions had been expected in the last meeting of 2015 and they did not happen. Markets reacted very positively on announcement but later, after the press conference, they went down to levels that were significantly below where they were before the announcement. It is always hard to comment on why markets react in a certain way to monetary policy announcements but I must say that watching the press conference I learned about the state of desperation and possibly confusion of the ECB, which was not very reassuring. It might not be their fault, this is life when central banks hit the zero lower bound on interest rates and there is very little they can do. And the available tools are not easy to communicate to markets and the general public. An extra 20 billion ...

If the US or the Eurozone entered a recession this year, a few macroeconomic variables would look very different relative to previous recessions. 1. The Yield curve would be very steep. Unlike in any previous recession when the yield curve was flat or inverted. 2. The real federal funds rate (or the ECB real repo rate) would be extremely low and would be at a level similar to that of the beginning of the expansion. Unlike in previous recessions where the real central bank interest rates was high relative to the beginning of the expansion. 3. And nominal central bank interest rates would be stuck at zero so there will be no room to lower them in response to the recession. Unlike in previous recessions where nominal interest rates came down by about 4-7 percentage point (this is also true for real interest rates, see previous chart). So maybe this tells us that a recession is not about to happen. But if it is, the lack of space to implement traditional monetary policy tools should be a b...

An interview with Hyun Song Shin, economic adviser and head of research at the BIS, reposted in the BIS web site  reminds us of the strange and heterodox views that the BIS (and others) have about the behavior of inflation. The views run contrary to most of what we all teach about inflation. They can only be understood if one has a very special and radical view on what determines inflation and are supported by a unique reading of the data. You probably need to read the whole interview to understand what I mean but here is a summary of the new BIS theory of inflation: 1. Inflation is a global phenomenon, not a national one. Monetary policy has very little influence on inflation, demographics and globalization are much more relevant factors. 2. The idea that monetary policy affects demand and possibly inflation is a "short-term" story that is too simple to understand the recent behavior of inflation. 3. Deflation is not that bad. The Great Depression is a special historical eve...

In most advanced economies business cycles can be well characterized by a succession of long expansion phases that are interrupted by short recessions. Given this pattern it is sometimes natural to think about the length of expansions as a key feature that describes the business cycle. While other variables matter (such as the depth and length of recessions), in the case of the US and to some extent in the case of European countries, the parameter that has changed the most across cycles is the length of the expansion phase. In the case of the US (using the NBER business cycle dates ), in the post-WWII period expansions have lasted from 12 months in the expansion ending in 1981to 120 months in the expansion ending in 2001. The current expansion is already 77 months long, longer than the previous expansion of 2001-2007. While counting months is not a good way to forecast the timing of the next recession it is at least a reminder that there is another recession waiting for us in the not-s...

It will soon be eight years since the US Federal Reserve decided to bring its interest rate down to 0%. Other central banks have spent similar number of years (or much longer in the case of Japan) stuck at the zero lower bound. In these eight years central banks have used all their available tools to increase inflation closer to their target and boost growth with limited success. GDP growth has been weak or anemic, and there is very little hope that economies will ever go back to their pre-crisis trends. Some of these trends have challenged the traditional view of academic economists and policy makers about how an economy works. Some of the facts that very few would have anticipated: - The idea that central banks cannot lift inflation rates closer to their targets over such a long horizon. - The fact that a crisis can be so persistent and that cyclical conditions can have such large permanent effects on potential output. - The slow (or inexistent) natural tendency of the economy to adj...

Ken Rogoff in the Financial Times argues that the world economy is suffering from a debt hangover rather than deficient demand. The argument and the evidence are partly there: financial crises tend to be more persistent. However, there is still an open question whether this is the fundamental reason why growth has been so anemic and whether other potential reasons (deficient demand, secular stagnation,…) matter as much or even more. In the article, Rogoff dismisses calls for policies to stimulate demand as the wrong actions to deal with debt, the ultimate cause of the crisis. As he argues, given that government expenditures have kept expanding (he uses the number for France at 57% of GDP) it is hard to argue in favor of more spending. But there is a perspective that is missing in that logic. The ratio of debt or government spending to GDP depends on GDP and GDP growth cannot be considered as exogenous. Assuming that the path of GDP is independent of the cyclical stance of the economy ...