A Remarkable Financial Moment [feedly]

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A Remarkable Financial Moment
// Economist's View

Larry Summers:

A Remarkable Financial Moment: The US 10 and 30 year interest rates today reached all time low levels of 1.32 percent and 2.10 percent. Record low 10 year interest rate were also registered in Germany, France, Switzerland and Australia. Notably Swiss 50 year interest rates are now for the first time negative. Rates out 15 years are negative in Germany and 9 years in France. ...

Remarkably the market does not now expect a full Fed tightening until early 2019. This is despite all the Fed speeches expressing optimism about the economy and a desire to normalize interest rates.

I believe that these developments all reflect a growing awareness of the importance of the secular stagnation risks that I have highlighted over the last several years. ...

Unfortunately markets have been much more aggressive in responding to events than policymakers. ... Having the right world view is essential if there is to be a chance of making the right decisions. Here are the necessary adjustments.

First..., neutral real interest rates are likely close to zero going forward. ...

Second, as counterintuitive as it is to central bankers who came of age when the inflation of the 1970s defined the central banking challenge, our problem today is insufficient inflation. ...

Third, in a world where interest rates over horizons of more than a generation are far lower than even pessimistic projections of growth, traditional thinking about debt sustainability needs to be discarded. ...Brad Delong and I set out in 2012 for expansionary fiscal policy to pay for itself are much more easily satisfied today than they were at that time.

Fourth, the traditional suite of structural policies to promote flexibility are not especially likely to be successful in the current environment... Indeed in the presence of chronic excess supply structural reform has the risk of spurring disinflation rather than the contributing to a necessary increase in inflation. There is in fact a case for strengthening entitlement benefits so as to promote current demand. ...

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