Monday September 10, 01:48 AM
Subprime economic theory
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By Melvyn Krauss
The possibility that the European Central Bank (ECB) may raise interest rates in the midst of a financial crisis recalls the great American orator WJ Bryan's famous "cross of gold" speech in 1896. Referring to the international gold standard's deflationary bias, he railed: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor a crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." In other words, ordinary people should not be made to suffer for the foibles of policymakers enthralled by some defunct economic theory. Today, the defunct economic theory is that a rapid shift in preferences-colourfully called a "reduced appetite for risk"-is the key reason behind the current subprime crisis. To avoid future increases in this appetite, policymakers and pundits have focused on the so-called "moral hazard problem"-the "bad guys" must pay for their mistakes, lest they make them again. One would have expected the modern-day Bryan to be warning central bankers not to crucify mankind on a "cross of moral hazard and no-bailouts." But, surprisingly, the opposite is occurring. Some on the Left, motivated in part by revulsion against financial types, have joined forces with conventional economists, whose almost religious belief in their models has blinded them to the harm their dubious economic theory can do to the real economy and the interests of ordinary people. No bailouts can mean no college for the kids, or, for many, no house. The key question economists should now be asking is why financial markets are "seizing up" when banks and other financial institutions are flush with liquidity. The conventional explanation-a reduced appetite for risk-is not convincing. The subprime market seems too small to have caused such a broad-based change in risk preference. A more convincing explanation is that the current crisis has so clouded the economic landscape as to freeze market participants in their tracks, so to speak, until things clear up. The key to understanding unsettled financial markets is not a change in preferences, but inherent imperfection of knowledge and altered expectations concerning the future course of macroeconomic fundamentals. What policy prescriptions does the "imperfect knowledge" approach imply for the current crisis? The most important one for central bankers is that they should cut interest rates to re-assure market participants that turmoil in financial markets will not be allowed to affect the real economy. Judging by its recent policy reversal, the US Federal Reserve acts as if it were a late convert to the imperfect knowledge hypothesis. The Fed at first fell into the trap of turning a blind eye to the wider consequences of the crisis. It injected money into the system, but ruled out interest-rate cuts. The results proved so disastrous that a mere ten days after its "What, me worry?" message, the Fed made an embarrassing but necessary aboutface and lowered the discount rate by 50 basis points. Downward risks to growth had significantly increased, Fed officials explained. The important thing is that the Fed shifted from indifference to re-assurance. Bernanke has had time to reflect upon how his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, handled the Long Term Capital financial crisis in 1998. Greenspan was not the kind of economist who would crucify mankind on either a cross of moral hazard or the mechanistic models of conventional economic theory. He cut interest rates to re-assure markets that the crisis caused by the hedge fund's collapse would not affect the real economy. The markets and economy responded with vigour and enthusiasm. After an initial stumble, Bernanke appears to be following in the master's footsteps. But what about the ECB? No one really knows how much the subprime crisis will affect the euro-zone economy. Faced with such dangerous uncertainty, prudent central bankers do not use their independence to make a bad situation worse by raising interest rates. Acting as if normality has returned and the crisis is over doesn't make it so. -The author is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. © Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2007
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