The False Promise of Financial Liberalization, by Dani Rodrik Enero 28, 2007
Posted by diiego in Opinion.add a comment
Debido a distracciones personales que mucha gente que me conoce entendera me ha tomado un poco mas de tiempo el terminar una serie de escritos que tenia planeado publicar, por lo que por esta ocasion dejare un muy buen articulo que nos habla sobre algunas serias fallas en los mercados como una critica a la globalización.
“The False Promise of Financial Liberalization, by Dani Rodrik, Project Syndicate: Something is amiss in the world of finance. The problem is not another financial meltdown in an emerging market, with the predictable contagion that engulfs neighboring countries. Even the most exposed countries handled the last round of financial shocks, in May and June 2006, relatively comfortably. Instead, the problem … is … that relatively calm times have helped reveal: the predicted benefits of financial globalization are nowhere to be seen.
Financial globalization is a recent phenomenon. One could trace its beginnings to the 1970’s, when recycled petrodollars fueled large capital inflows to developing nations. But it was only around 1990 that most emerging markets threw caution to the wind and removed controls on private portfolio and bank flows. Private capital flows have exploded since, dwarfing trade in goods and services. So the world has experienced true financial globalization only for 15 years or so.
Freeing up capital flows had an inexorable logic – or so it seemed. Developing nations, the argument went, have plenty of investment opportunities, but are short of savings. Foreign capital inflows would allow them to draw on the savings of rich countries, increase their investment rates, and stimulate growth. In addition, financial globalization would allow poor nations to smooth out the boom-and-bust cycles associated with temporary terms-of-trade shocks and other bouts of bad luck. Finally, exposure to the discipline of financial markets would make it harder for profligate governments to misbehave.
But things have not worked out according to plan. Research at the IMF, of all places, as well as by independent scholars documents a number of puzzles and paradoxes. For example, it is difficult to find evidence that countries that freed up capital flows have experienced sustained economic growth as a result. In fact, many emerging markets experienced declines in investment rates. Nor, on balance, has liberalization of capital flows stabilized consumption.
Most intriguingly, the countries that have done the best in recent years are those that relied the least on foreign financing. China … has a huge current-account surplus, which means that it is a net lender…. Among other high-growth countries, Vietnam’s current account is essentially balanced, and India has only a small deficit. Latin America, Argentina and Brazil have been running comfortable external surpluses recently. In fact, their new-found resilience to capital-market shocks is due in no small part to their becoming net lenders to the rest of the world, after years as net borrowers.
To understand what is going on, we need a different explanation of what keeps investment and growth low in most poor nations. Whereas the standard story – the one that motivated the drive to liberalize capital flows – is that developing countries are saving-constrained, the fact that capital is moving outward rather than inward in the most successful developing countries suggests that the constraint lies elsewhere. Most likely, the real constraint lies on the investment side.
The main problem seems to be the paucity of entrepreneurship and low propensity to invest in plant and equipment …, especially to raise output of products that can be traded on world markets…
When countries suffer from low investment demand, freeing up capital inflows does not do much good. What businesses in these countries need is not necessarily more finance, but the expectation of larger profits for their owners. In fact, capital inflows can make things worse, because they tend to appreciate the domestic currency and make production in export activities less profitable…
Thus, the pattern in emerging market economies that liberalized capital inflows has been lower investment in the modern sectors of the economy, and eventually slower economic growth (once the consumption boom associated with the capital inflows plays out). By contrast, countries like China and India, which avoided a surge of capital inflows, managed to maintain highly competitive domestic currencies, and thereby kept profitability and investment high.
The lesson for countries that have not yet made the leap to financial globalization is clear: beware. Nothing can kill growth more effectively than an uncompetitive currency, and there is no faster route to currency appreciation than a surge in capital inflows.
For those countries that have already made the leap, the choices are more difficult. Managing the exchange rate becomes much more difficult when capital is free to come and go as it pleases. But it is not impossible…
Given all the effort that the world’s “emerging markets” have devoted to shielding themselves from financial volatility, they have reason to ask: where in the world is the upside of financial liberalization? That is a question all of us should consider.”
Joseph Stiglitz: la crisis de Estados Unidos y la globalización Enero 16, 2007
Posted by diiego in General.add a comment
Aqui esta una muy interesante entrevista a Joseph Stiglitz premio Nóbel de Economía en el 2001 donde nos habla sobre el riesgo de una profunda crisis en la economía norteamericana y sobre el problema que trae consigo una globalización mal dirigida.
An Interview with Joseph Stiglitz
Globalization Has Increased the Wealth Gap, by Terrence McNally, AlterNet: …
You write, “…Economists believe incentives matter. There are strong incentives — and enormous opportunities — to shape political processes and the economic system in ways that generate profits for some at the expense of the many.” Not news to a lot of us, but can you say a few words about that?
JS: …[E]conomic globalization has outpaced political globalization. Because we are more interdependent, there’s a greater need to take collective action and work together. But our political institutions and our mindsets have not really kept pace. We do have certain international political institutions, but they are very removed from democratic processes.
The World Trade Organization and the like –?
JS: Exactly. There’s been a heavy engagement in these institutions by the multinational corporations who know how to shape the policies in ways that benefit themselves.
The WTO was basically created by them, wasn’t it?
JS: Not really. The idea that you would have a rule of law in international trade is a very old idea, and actually …
– not the notion perhaps, but it’s always seemed to me that the system of secret tribunals, for instance, in which a corporation is basically able to take a government to court, was set up to serve the multinationals.
JS: Very much so. But I want to point out that this is not inherent in globalization. The idea that a rule of law would govern international trade relations is a very important idea that many idealists thought was good. Back in the ’20s one of the factors that contributed to the Great Recession was a series of trade wars, and one of the ideas behind the establishment of the WTO was to try to prevent that from ever happening again.
But you’re exactly right; the agenda got seized. …
If a multinational’s agreements within the WTO don’t play out as planned, then they switch to bilateral ones, right?
JS: Exactly, and there the imbalance of power is even greater than in the multilateral context. So the United States is making agreements with small countries like Qatar or Chile. The good news is that none of them have involved a significant fraction of global trade. But for the people of these particular countries, these agreements have potentially been a disaster.
I was having dinner the other night with one of the main trade negotiators of the Morocco agreement. He was opposed to it, and pointed out it was hardly a negotiation. The United States made demands, which Morocco had to either accept or reject. Morocco was hopeful that signing it would at least lead to a burst of new growth, but it hasn’t. All it did was reduce access to AIDS medicines.
Changing subjects, what is your take on the potential economic crisis facing the United States at this time — the enormous amount of debt we carry as households and as a nation, our trade and budget deficits, the extent to which we’re in hock to China and a few other countries? Some of your peers, Paul Krugman among them, are alarmed, but it seems under the radar to most Americans. How serious do you think this is, and if you have to guess, how do you think it’s going to play out?
JS: I’m very strongly in agreement with Paul Krugman’s analysis. I think we are in a precarious position. We might be lucky and wander our way through this mess. There is a significant probability, however, that global interest rates could rise. If that happened, households with a large amount of debt would find it very difficult to meet their mortgage payments, and home prices would go down, which would lead to a reduction in consumption. Last year Americans consumed more than their income, something that is obviously not sustainable. The only way they could get away with it was by taking out money from their houses. But if home prices go down, they won’t be able to do that any more. So there is a significant risk of a large economic slowdown. And government, by piling on so much debt and having such a large deficit, does not have much room to maneuver.
In terms of housing, an awful lot of people bought or refinanced with innovative mortgages over the last few years. Some of their five-year balloon payments or rate changes are going to happen in 2007.
JS: That’s what I’m worrying about too. When it comes to refinance, if interest rates are high, they’re going to be in a difficult squeeze. They could almost pray for a global slowdown to keep interest rates low, but that’s not good for the American economy either.
Though some numbers say the economy is healthy, growth has not been shared…
JS: I would emphasize that the growth is not widely shared. The income of the median American household — half the people are richer, half are poorer — is lower today than it was five years ago. More broadly, for 30 years people at the bottom have seen their real wages not only stagnate but actually fall. Part of that has to do with globalization, but only part of it. …
You’re not only saying globalization is not the problem, but also that market forces are not the problem. It’s really comes down to their wise use.
JS: Exactly. The primary lesson of economics is that incentives are important. Markets don’t always provide the right incentives, so in those cases you have to reshape them. …
Finally, how would you deal with the enormous power of multinational corporations?
JS: Corporations have brought forth many of the benefits of globalization, and I should make clear that there have been benefits. Some of the countries of the world, China and India, for example, have been growing very rapidly. … Millions of people have moved out of poverty as a result.
Corporations have been an important vehicle for the transfer of technology and access to global markets that have improved the lives of people in these countries. The corporations also are a source of a lot of the problems. When they take natural resources out of countries, they often leave environmental devastation behind. They’re often associated with bribing governments and contributing to corruption.
Here again, one of the simple ideas is to try to make incentives work better. Right now the only incentive for corporations is the bottom line, and that means if bribing a government official will get the natural resource at a lower price, that’s what they’re going to do.
I could argue that political forces also have to have the right incentives. There needs to be more understanding of these issues and more citizen engagement, in order to put pressure on our government officials to do the right thing. Because it will take government action to alter the incentives structures corporations face.
And I can’t imagine that happening until we change how we finance political campaigns.
JS: Once again it comes down to incentives.
México: los precios volátiles y su efecto en el consumo. Enero 14, 2007
Posted by diiego in Analisis, Opinion.2 comments
Como todos nos hemos dado cuenta, en este inicio de año se ha suscitado un fenómeno muy particular en nuestro país, una alza continua en los precios, podemos entenderlo como inflación si no somos muy estrictos al respecto, pero las preguntas clave son ¿por que se ha dado?, ¿que efectos tiene y como se puede atacar? el sin lugar a dudas gran primer desequilibrio económico que se encuentra en su camino el nuevo gobierno?
Primero que nada antes de hacer un análisis técnico del fenómeno que explicare en los próximos días, quiero plantear la grabe consecuencia en la trama social y en general en todos los actores económicos, desde los consumidores de todos los estratos altos o bajos hasta el consumo a su nivel agregado y el serio deterioro a la competitividad en nuestros mercados y claro esta como esto se refleja en nuestra incapacidad de ser autosuficientes o medianamente serlo (autarquía).
Comenzare por lo ultimo, todos los economistas sabemos que una economía se encuentra en autarquía cuando esta es autosuficiente y no depende de la importación de productos, la economía mexicana así funciono por mucho tiempo, pero al abandonarse el modelo de ISI mejor conocido como la sustitución de importaciones, en búsqueda de ganar competitividad al abrirse al mercado mundial esta se perdió, se perdió por que sobre todo en el campo, justamente el punto en el cual podemos ubicar la alza de precios de estos días.
La lógica de la economía internacional como he mencionado en otros momentos esta en el explotar ventajas absolutas, relativas y comparativas, es decir en importar lo que me sale mas barato y producir lo que puedo vender mas caro ( producir al menor costo de oportunidad) tras el proceso de apertura lo que sucedió es que se realizo de forma muy brusca como se negocio en el TLCAN en el gobierno de Carlos Salinas, también bajo la lógica de la economía internacional sabemos que los mercados que no se puedan mantener competitivos y que no puedan tener la flexibilidad para poder moverse a la par del mercado mundial están condenados a morir, y eso justamente es lo que ha ocurrido en el campo mexicano, se perdió de forma casi total toda autonomía en ese mercado.
Ahora se preguntaran por que regresar tantos años para explicar este fenómeno, la respuesta es simple, este año se vence el plazo para la apertura total del campo mexicano en el marco del TLC, y esto sin duda ha afectado en las expectativas de precios o de inflación, que como sabemos gracias a los trabajos de Edmund Phelps Nóbel de economía del 2006 entre otros economistas que han estudiado la ínter temporalidad de la inflación las expectativas de precios marcan la tendencia de los precios futuros.
Dejando la parte técnica que como dije explicare en otro momento, podemos ver como los actores económicos en México al tener expectativas de cambios en los precios futuros tomaron decisiones en el sentido de una competencia monopolística, dadas las fallas en la economía mexicana y en general a la imperfección de los mercados que se asumen como de competencia perfecta, les permitió controlar el flujo de productos controlando su oferta haciendo subir su precio de forma rápida, como lo explico el gobernador de BANXICO Guillermo Ortiz los acaparadores generaron un incremente en los precios al controlar la escasez, el año pasado se dio algo muy semejante con el azúcar, cuando los productores de ingenios azucareras se negaron a vender para posteriormente aumentar sus precios, el problema se soluciono abriendo las fronteras ala importación para forzar los precios a bajar ante una competencia fuerte, ahora ustedes pensaran que debería seguirse la misma estrategia y seria la ideal si no fuera por que para el Maíz principal producto afectado no hay restricciones las importaciones existen lo cual sitúa en una difícil situación a la economía mexicana.
El problema radica en la falta de capacidad interna para producir y a que la importación no es suficiente y a precios altos, esto sumando al comportamiento monopólico del mercado nacional lleva a las fuerzas del mercado a una irremediable alza de precios, entonces como resolverlo, en mi opinión hay solo 2 salidas eficientes, la primera es la subvención en una medida competitiva solo para frenar incrementos de precios, siguiendo un modelo como el europeo o el americano, sin embargo esto no es visto con buenos ojos por el recuerdo de políticas publicas mal encaminadas en los años 70, entonces eso nos lleva a una segunda salida, el aumento del salario, al aumentar el salario se nivelaría el efecto de los precios ya que la inflación no seria mas grane que el crecimiento del poder adquisitivo seria solo nominal, sin embargo esto llevaría en el largo plazo a una espiral inflacionaria ya que al subir salarios suben también otros factores, por lo tanto seria una solución solo para el corto plazo, en mi opinión y como de seguro estarán de acuerdo otros economistas y otros no la forma mas adecuada de atacarlo es por ambos lados, de inicio incrementando el salario llevándolo a su limite en el que no interfiera con el grado pleno empleo que se tiene calculado para nuestra economía preparando para el largo plazo una expansión de la política fiscal que permita subvencionar algunos de estos procesos productivos.
El problema que se ha generado es sin duda de carácter de seguridad nacional, ya que en un país donde se tienen alrededor de 50 millones de pobres aumentos en alimentos de la canasta básica hacen muy difícil su supervivencia y limitan sus posibilidades en muchos otros aspectos como el educativo, incluso llegan a impactar la seguridad publica, es indispensable replantear toda la política económica y social del estado mexicano si se quiere fomentar un verdadero crecimiento.
Salarios y Productividad Enero 4, 2007
Posted by diiego in Analisis.add a comment
Por esta ves el articulo no es mio, pero me parecio muy interesante la opinión de uno de los especialistas en comercio y economía internacional más prestigiados del mundo para tratar un punto muy importante por que el aumento de la productividad no trae consigo tambien un aumento en los salarios, la explicacion es muy atractiva.
Technology, not globalisation, drives wages down, by Jagdish Bhagwati, Commentary, Financial Times [open link]: We have recently witnessed a flurry of comment in the US on the long-running stagnation of wages. Many believe that the future livelihood of the “middle class” is also at risk.
Lou Dobbs …, the … Economic Policy Institute and nearly all the Democrats newly elected to Congress believe that globalisation has much to do with the economic distress of the working and middle classes. Therefore they … want to lean on the door – even to close it – on trade with poor countries and occasionally on unskilled immigration from them.
Proponents of globalisation … find themselves in a politically implausible position: they typically … accept this “distributional” critique of globalisation – yet nonetheless propose that those adversely affected should accept globalisation but be aided…
As it happens, globalisation’s supporters are on firmer ground than they fear. Examine the common arguments linking globalisation to the distributional distress and little survives.
First, all empirical studies, including those done by some of today’s top trade economists (such as Paul Krugman … and Robert Feenstra …), show that the adverse effect of trade on wages is not substantial. …
Second, the same goes for … studies by the best labour economists regarding the … influx of unskilled illegal immigrants into the US. The latest study by George Borjas and Larry Katz … also shows a virtually negligible impact on workers’ wages, once necessary adjustments are made.
Can it be that globalisation has reduced the bargaining ability of workers and thus put a downward pressure on wages? I strongly doubt this. First, the argument is not relevant when employers and workers are in a competitive market and workers must be paid the going wage. As it happens, fewer than 10 per cent of workers in the private sector in the US are now unionised.
Second, if it is claimed that acceleration in globalisation has decimated union membership, that is dubious. The decline in unionisation has been going on for longer than the past two decades of globalisation …
Has the outflow of direct foreign investment … contributed to a decline in wages? As I look at the data, the US has received about as much equity investment as it has lost over the past two decades. One cannot just look at one side of the ledger.
The culprit is not globalisation but labour-saving technical change that puts pressure on the wages of the unskilled. Technical change prompts continual economies in the use of unskilled labour. Much empirical argumentation and evidence exists on this. …
Such technical change is quickly spreading through the system. This naturally creates, in the short-run, pressure on the jobs and wages of the workers being displaced.
But we know from past experience that we usually get a J-curve where, as increased productivity takes hold, it will … lead to higher wages. So why has there been no such significant effect in the statistics on wages for almost two decades?
I suspect that the answer lies in the intensity of displacement of unskilled labour by information technology-based change and in the fact that this process is continuous now – unlike discrete changes caused by past inventions such as the steam engine. Before the workers get on to the rising part of the J-curve, they run into yet more such technical change, so that the working class gets to go from one declining segment of the J-curve to another.
The pressure on wages becomes relentless, lasting over longer periods than in earlier experience with unskilled labour-saving technical change. But this technical change, which proceeds like a tsunami, has nothing to do with globalisation.
