It might be a good idea to do something else with QE than government bonds. But that should be up to the Bank of England, not politicians
By Buttonwood
ENTHUSIASM for political outsiders is not confined to Donald Trump, Greece's Syriza or France's Marine Le Pen. In Britain, a formerly obscure leftwinger named Jeremy Corbyn seems on course to be Labour leader and thus potentially the next prime minister. There is plenty to be said about his foreign policy views, such as withdrawal from NATO; read this profile in Labour's in-house magazine, the New Statesman, for the details.
But the enthusiasm for Mr Corbyn seems driven by his economic policies, notably his opposition to austerity. His maths look shaky as has been pointed out by Jolyon Maugham; he thinks the 50% tax rate would raise £5 billion when £3.5 billion is the maximum even if one assumes there are no effects on behaviour from the higher tax rate. And he assumes that £120 billion can be collected in higher taxes by eliminating evasion and avoidance when £34 billion is the theoretical maximum if one assumes, heroically, the government could collect all potential revenues (this "tax gap" has fallen, not risen, in recent years).
Perhaps the most interesting policy is that of "people's QE" (quantitative easing). His economic adviser, Richard Murphy, appeared on the BBC's World At One on August 3rd to explain. He was responding to criticism from the current Labour economic spokesman, Chris Leslie. Let me quote him at length.
First of all, he (Leslie) should remember that it was a Labour government that in 2009 created a programme of QE that eventually printed £375 billion of money to bail out the banks. It didn't work, it simply boosted the bank's bonuses and bank profits and ordinary people didn't benefit. People's QE, which he (Leslie again) seemed to be confusing with the one that was created by Ed Balls (Labour's former shadow chancellor. but see below) is fundamentally different. People's QE, I won't go into the technicalities, does indeed have the Bank of England print new money which is identical, by the way, to the very process used by ordinary banks when they lend to business. But it gives that money to people like housing associations, to local councils, to a green investment bank to build houses, to build schools (and) build hospitals.
There are a lot of issues here. First of all, there is a case for arguing that governments should take advantage of low interest rates by building infrastructure that eventually boosts productivity. That could be done, of course, without any involvement of the central bank at all, merely an increase in the fiscal deficit. The second issue is whether there is a need for more QE at all, given the current economic circumstances. The Bank of England stopped its QE programme in three years ago and its governor, Mark Carney, is pointing to a potential rise in interest rates soon; a tightening, not a loosening, of monetary policy.
So the third, and biggest, issue is whether it would be the Bank, or Mr Corbyn, who launched people's QE. It is noticeable that Mr Murphy blames Ed Balls for the "failed" QE, even though Alastair Darling was chancellor at the time and Mr Balls was not in an economic job (he was secretary of state for children, schools and families). In any case, I have never heard anyone suggest it was a Labour-inspired policy; the Bank of England makes clear that
QE is decided by the Bank of England's monetary policy committee chaired by the Governor.This Committee sets monetary policy – interest rates and QE – in order to deliver the inflation target, which is currently for CPI inflation of 2%.
QE was used because the Bank had come close to the zero interest rate bound and wanted to take further steps to support the economy. To the extent that further QE is needed, that would be the reason again.
The phrase "QE for the people" was used in May in this article by Mark Blyth, Eric Lonergan and Simon Wren-Lewis. But this proposes merely that
the government legislates to empower the Bank of England with the ability to make payments directly to the household sector – QE for the people. With this tool the Bank would be equipped to mitigate any sharp slowdown in the economy, caused by domestic or external factors, such as a deflationary shock from a Chinese or US recession, or a continued slump in the eurozone.
adding crucially that
Consistent with operational independence of the Bank of England, the size of payments and their timing should be solely under its control, and subject to the inflation target.
That idea seems quite different from the Corbyn plan. Mr Murphy certainly seems to think the Bank of England should be easing, not tightening. Here he is again on the World At One
First of all, we don't have inflation at the moment and the target is to have 2% inflation so in fact we do need a programme that creates inflation. Right across Europe, that is official policy at the moment. the EU is creating €1 trillion of QE to make sure inflation is restored because that actually is the basis of economic prosperity. People don't invest when we don't have inflation. Therefore, we need it. Of course, we could turn the policy off. Any form of people's QE would be turned off if we got back to a situation of high wages and full employment. But we are so far from that at the moment that we have to tackle the low wage economy and the lack of productivity in the UK by creating new investment which is the foundation of prosperity.
Again, there are a number of issues with this. If wages are driven higher by inflation, how would this affect the competitive position of British companies selling goods abroad, and thus the job prospects of workers? And why would higher inflation boost productivity?
Furthermore, could such a policy be "turned off" easily? If the money is being used to build, say, a high-speed railway, the railway would be left half-finished without further funding; if it were used to fund, say, a solar energy plant, the plant might go bust without continued funding. The current QE, for all its flaws, can in theory be reversed; the Bank of England can sell its gilts or not reinvest when the bonds mature. Hard to see how that could be done with people's QE; the temptation would be to carry on because of the effect on jobs, wages etc.
But the key point is that it is hard to see an independent Bank of England signing up for this programme. Mark Carney may be more charming than his flinty predecessor, Lord King, but one suspects he'd be on the first plane back to Toronto if this programme were adopted. The Bank would need to be told what to do.
This brings us back to what some of us have feared about QE all along; it is the slipperiest of slopes. One can justify extraordinary measures when the world was crashing in 2009 but the economy has been growing and unemployment has been falling for several years now. However, what government could resist the temptation of using a pliant central bank to fund its spending commitments, compared with the alternatives of imposing taxes on voters or raising bonds from picky international creditors (think Greece)?
It might seem OTT at this point to make a reference to Venezuela where these policies were taken to the extreme (see the latest mess here). Except that Mr Corbyn was a big supporter of Mr Chavez tweeting on his death that he made
massive contributions to Venezuela and a very wide world
Of course, Mr Corbyn might never gain office but the same was thought of Syriza.
