FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS January 4, 1999RR-2877 I appreciate very much the honor that the Society of Government Economists has bestowed upon me in asking me to address you today. Before I say anything else I want to acknowledge that one of the great strengths of America's government is its career government economists. While academic interlopers serving as political appointees may get a majority of the attention, a majority of the accomplishment in areas ranging from tax policy to telecommunications policy, from monetary policy to manpower policy, from financial policy to forestry policy, is the result of the steady perseverance of career government economists. Increasingly the language of public policy is the language of economics, and sophisticated policy formulation depends on an understanding of economic concepts. Over the last 6 years I have had the chance to be present when concepts ranging from "superlative price indices" to "multiple equilibrium" to "the liquidity trap" to "dynamic hedging" to "shadow pricing" have been discussed with the President of the United States. Where it was once the case in the United States that the President's Council of Economic Advisers waged a lonely battle for "good" economics, today, first rate economists staff departments ranging from Treasury to Labor to Commerce to Justice to EPA and hold line as well as advisory positions. As remarkable as the penetration of economics and economists into the American government has been its penetration into even higher levels of governments around the world. A decade ago Mexican President Zedillo was a practicing monetary economist in the Bank of Mexico. Two recent Italian Prime Ministers Romano Prodi, and Lamberto Dini have distinguished records as economic thinkers. Lest anyone think all those trained in economics think alike, Russian Prime Minister Primakov holds a doctorate in political economy. And there are too many examples at the level of finance minister and central bank governor to catalog. Just think of the Berkeley Mafia in Indonesia, the Chicago boys in Chile, and the MIT and Harvard graduates who have played such a large role over the last decade in Mexico and Argentina, or the historic changes wrought by Mahomon Singh as India's finance minster. Any doubt I might have had about the globalization of economic thinking was shattered when I met with Chinese Premier Zhu Rhongi in early 1997 in the same pavilion where Chairman Mao had received foreign visitors. After being offered a Diet Coke I was asked a variety of searching questions about the possible use of put options in defending a currency, and how they might be best structured. It is perhaps good that economic thinking has globalized because the challenge of managing international economic integration may be the preeminent new challenge facing economic policy makers around the world, and as important as any other political challenge facing the world's diplomats. I recognize of course that international integration has many aspects, trade, capital flows, multinational corporations, policy spillovers, and the list could be continued. But I think there are some common dilemmas posed by international integration in all its forms and it is these that I want to concentrate on this afternoon. As I consider this topic, I shall try to emphasize the interplay of economic reasoning and economic policy making highlighting both those areas where the world would be a much better place if the polity understood basic economics, and the areas where textbook economics omits what are legitimately key parts of the policy problem. Most relevant to today's subject is that in research one simplifies a problem to make it tractable, works on it until a satisfactory solution is found, and abandons it, if it is too hard. Policy makers cannot abstract from awkward aspects of reality, have timetables set by external conditions, and cannot abandon problems because they are too hard. Much has been said about globalization and economic integration. I want to address four subjects today. The first is the extent of global integration that has taken place and that lies in prospect. The second is the challenge that economic integration poses to domestic and international policy makers around the world. Third, I want to reflect on some of the policy implications of increased integration in one area that has been highlighted by the crises in Asia, Russia and elsewhere -- the international capital market. Finally, I will offer some concluding observations about the special role of the world's only economic superpower in managing global integration. I. Global Integration: Past, Present and Future Some time ago, I visited Mozambique -- by some measures the world's poorest country -- to discuss issues relating to debt relief. Seated at a lunch with the local business community, I inquired of the person next to me how business was. He responded "pretty good but I am worried about the future" When I asked why, he explained that he was the monopoly Internet provider in Mozambique but feared that competition was coming and would erode his profits. That story captures the main forces driving global integration: technology, the growing faith in markets, and the growing connection between poorer and richer nations.
To be sure, as a number of authors -- such as Paul Krugman and Dani Rodrik -- have noted, it is easy to overdo the novelty of globalization as a phenomenon. In important respects we are, as Rodrik puts it, simply going back to the future. The dark years between 1914-1950 saw a literal dis-integration of the world economy, as governments actively sought to inhibit integration for a host of economic and political reasons. But the pre-World War I economy was surprisingly integrated. Trade shares for a number of countries including the United States were not so different in 1890 and 1990. The twentieth century has not seen capital flows on the scale of Britain's steady capital exports of 7 percent of GDP at the end of the last century. And the passport and resulting inhibition to free labor mobility has been a 20th century innovation. In fact, two considerations suggest that we may barring political or economic catastrophe be far less advanced in the process of global integration than is often supposed. First, recent research on intra-national trade using remarkable data on intra-provincial Canadian trade summarized in John Helliwell (1998) suggests that differing regions of national economies are far, far more integrated than comparably sized comparably distant regions separated by a national border. Helliwell finds that adjusting for scale and distance, trade between Canadian provinces was 17 times as great as between Canadian provinces and American states in 1988, falling with the implementation of the free trade agreements to about 12 times more recently. This is not some econometric curiosity. Trade between Ontario and Washington state is only 1/12 as large as trade between Ontario and British Colombia even though the economy of Washington state is 1/3 larger than that of Ontario! Using much less satisfactory data, he finds very substantial though smaller border effects with the EU. In a similar vein, Helliwell's data suggest that the impact of the US-Canada border, a border about as permeable as exists between nations on trade services, on the flow of capital and on migration is far larger even than on the flow of goods. It is not entirely clear how to interpret these findings. At a minimum, it should give pause to those who proclaim a borderless world, or the end of the nation state. To some extent, it must reflect that much economic activity depends on social networks and these are more common where there are ties of nationality and language than where there are not. These findings certainly point up the fact that even with the most far reaching of free trade agreements, there is likely to a considerable gap between reality and the free trade model. But they must also point up that there is vastly more potential international economic integration than is usually recognized, and that if and when technology, communications, politics, and cultural convergence reduce the national border effects international considerations could come to loom far larger in national economic policy making than they do today. The second consideration suggesting that we may be at only an early stage in confronting the effects of global integration is the rise of the developing world's economies. While the watershed events of the last year, give pause I am convinced that history will record as the most important economic event of the late part of the 20th century, the convergence of large parts of the developing world towards industrial country living standards. More than 1/4 of humanity is enjoying growth at rates where living standards quadruple within a generation is unprecedented in economic history. Even if convergence does not continue at quite the rate of the last decade, this means that inevitably there will be far more production taking place in countries where relative incomes are far lower than in the United States or other industrialized countries. Already on some purchasing power parity measures, China is the world's second largest economy. As the relatively homogeneous industrialized world, comes to have a smaller share of the world's population and total output, it is inevitable that if barriers continue to fall international forces will operate increasingly strongly on national economies. To summarize: integration is a more salient feature of economic life than ever before. Yet there is good reason to think that, barring catastrophe, we will see much more integration in the future. This raises the question of how it will be and should be managed. II. Managing Economic Integration An audience such as this one does not need to be reminded of the benefits of open markets, free trade and economic integration. Fundamentally, the case for free trade is the case for the market system. The benefits come in the form of greater realization of the efficiencies available from specialization, from allowing resources to flow to their most productive use, from comparative advantage, and from the spur of competition. They show up in the form of higher living standards resulting from higher wages and higher returns to capital and quite likely in the form of higher rates of growth. While the case is not airtight -- consider Europe prior to World War I -- there is a strong argument to be made that increased economic integration also brings in its wake greater political stability and reduced potential conflict. Only half in jest, Tom Friedman notes that no two countries with a McDonalds have ever fought a war. There are other kinds of links between integration and stability. A sizeable fraction of conflicts have their roots either in economic failure -- post World War I Germany, to take just one example -- or in economic success that is limited by others' protectionism, think of Japan's rise in the 1920s and 1930s. It may be that the fact that the profound economic changes in Asia, on top of simmering ethnic conflicts, have not so far led to violence is related in part to success of global trade liberalization. I belabor slightly the benefits of economic integration because the arguments I have made differ from the ones usually used in political debate about trade. It sometimes seems in political debates that the main arguments for open markets and free trade are the mercantilist ones. Thus the volume of exports and the jobs they create are normally stressed, and the impression is left that imports are a bad job-destroying thing. The truth is that in an economy in which aggregate demand is being managed to optimize an inflation-unemployment trade off, trade policies will not impact on the quantity of jobs only on their industrial composition. Adding export jobs and subtracting import jobs in most economies raises average standards of living. And imports have important benefits including lower consumer prices, greater competitiveness for producers who use imported inputs, and downwards pressure on inflation. Of course, any international economics textbook records a variety of qualifications and amplifications to the case for open international markets that I have just summarized. The most important qualifications have to do with reciprocity the idea that unilateral opening up reduces leverage to get others to open up which is also in a country's interest, with pre-existing distortions that may be exacerbated by opening up an inadequately regulated banking system to take an example with currency, and with various market imperfections as are implicit in infant industry arguments. The most important amplifications have to do with rent seeking and the overwhelming tendency for efforts to resist international integration to also inhibit the growth of domestic market forces. In the face of these arguments, the most important reason why the world has not made more progress, and why progress is resisted in promoting integration, is that the losers know who they are and organize, and winners do not know who they are and cannot and do not organize. In part, this is because producers organize much more easily than consumers. In part it is because of the natural human tendency to internalize good news and externalize bad news. How many people doing a mediocre job, at a badly managed firm, blame their layoff on foreign competition? How many offered a raise or promotion because they were the best alternative in a labor short region following a surge of export demand credit open markets rather than their own skill? Clearly, public education on these points is a major task for the economically literate, one with important stakes for our national well being. But there is a different and growing challenge posed by global integration, one that
relates
directly to the aspirations of governments. It may be that the largest and most important
difference between the globalization we have seen in recent decades and that of the
last century is
that it impinges on the economic activities of government to a much greater degree
than it did
then -- in large part because governments themselves are doing so much more.
During his campaign for the Presidency in 1992, candidate Clinton, recognizing
these
conflicts, laid very considerable stress on the close connections between on the one
hand,
domestic and international economic policy, and on the other, international economic
policy and
more traditional foreign policy. The National Economic Council was a structural
innovation in
the US government designed to facilitate the recognition of these linkages. What has
become
clear in the last few years, is just how important these linkages are.
Integration is a good thing. But it raises tensions with other good things. Yes,
greater
economic integration is in our national interest. But so also, in the view of most of us, is
government involvement in stabilizing and regulating the economy and providing some
degree of
insurance to citizens. And so also, in the view of most us, is sovereignty a good thing.
We want
food that is safe by standards set by our representatives, tax rates set by those who
represent us,
and macroeconomic policies set with Americans' welfare in mind.
Domestically, in almost every country there will be the challenge of overcoming the
special interest with the general interest. But the central task of international political
economy I
would suggest in the years ahead will be reconciling as well as possible the three goals
of greater
integration, proper public economic management, and national sovereignty - or what for
brevity's
sake I will call the integration trilemma.
Reconciling any two of the objectives is easy if little weight is given to the
third.
Thus traditional conservative economists like Milton Friedman resolve the integration
trilemma
by stressing the benefits of integration and the necessity of national sovereignty. They
recognize
that in a world of capital mobility, this means that governments' capacity to tax capital,
or to
regulate industry is likely to be eroded as jurisdictions are pitted against one another.
And they
see this as a benefit. Similarly they welcome any erosion of the capacity to carry out
discretionary macroeconomic policy. The logic here is exactly that of American debates
about
the role of Federal vs state and local government policies, with conservatives always
favoring
more power being assigned to the states.
Modern protectionists like Pat Buchanan resolve the integration trilemma by
emphasizing sovereignty and the need for public management and are prepared to
sacrifice
integration. Indeed, rather than emphasizing the traditional benefits of protection, their
argument
is couched heavily in terms of integration's corrosive effect on the public sector's ability
to set
and enforce regulatory standards, and on the benefits that integration conveys to
mobile rich
capitalists. This strain of thought is not confined to the likes of Pat Buchanan. Paul
Krugman has
argued for controls on capital outflows on the grounds that they would permit countries
to pursue
more domestically congenial monetary policies in countries facing serious financial
strains.
Idealists resolve the trilemma by emphasizing integration and public action and
accepting
intrusions on sovereignty. Outside of the ivory tower there are few idealists in this
sense on a
global scale. But at the continental level, it is precisely this approach that has animated
the
European Union project over the last several decades. Monetary union is only the most
recent
example of a measure which promotes integration and preserves public management
by reducing
national sovereignty. An even clearer example is Brussels' large role in setting trade
and all
manner of regulatory policies for the European Union.
For those who are wedded to all three horns of the trilemma, none of these
positions are
comfortable. In what kind of compromise can one take refuge? A number of features
of policies
directed at promoting international integration stand out.
First, there has been a consistent desire to finesse sovereignty problems by
highlighting
the national benefits of internationally congenial behavior. Thus, G-7 macroeconomic
cooperation is premised on the idea that nations pursue, and should pursue, their own
interests,
but that peer pressure can often be constructive in inducing them properly to pursue
their own
interests. American labor rights and intellectual property advocates both seek to argue
that the
national interest of other countries coincides with American interests in protecting
workers from
unfair competition and upholding intellectual property rights. Recent enthusiasm for
codes of
good practice in areas like fiscal and monetary transparency reflect a similar impulse.
Second, there is a desire to pursue integration at sub-global levels. The European
Union
is only the most obvious example. While traditional trade theory views sub-global
integration
with some suspicion, emphasizing the distinction between trade creation and trade
diversion, its
appeal to policy makers has been increasingly evident over the last decade. Part of the
motivation is political: to solidify ties between neighbors. But an important element must
also be
the greater desire to pursue integration that will more fully harmonize other aspects of
national
policies. Where traditional trade theories emphasize that the benefits of integration are
greatest
where national economies differ most, the EU has found accession issues most difficult
with
countries, such as Turkey, that are the most different from existing members.
Third, there is the greatest willingness to cede power to international institutions
where
there is the greatest technical agreement on what needs to be done and where issues
of values are
less paramount. Thus, for example, there is more international agreement on questions
like air
safety standards and bank capital requirements than on questions like tax rules and
labor
standards.
Where does this leave us? The world does not stand still. Continuing
improvements in
technology, increasing skill levels in developing countries, the spread of cross-border
organizations -- all of these are operating to increase global integration. This brings
enormous
benefits but inevitably it also circumscribes governments' ability to pursue public
purposes.
Perhaps most significantly, just at the time that integration may be increasing the desire
for
policies that insure citizens, it may also be making important income generators more
mobile,
thus reducing the capacity for insurance and redistribution.
The upshot is that those who believe that increasing international integration of
economies is a good thing have to accept the concomitant obligation to press for more
effective
international efforts to insure that public purposes are preserved -- and that means
pursuing the
strategies above, and perhaps others, with increasing vigor. Or to put it differently,
economists
want their fellow citizens to understand what they know about the benefits of free trade.
They
could also do well to learn what their fellow citizens know about wanting to live in a
properly
balanced economy managed by their elected representatives.
III. The Challenge of Financial Integration
These challenges take on increased urgency in the financial arena in light of the
events of
the past two years. Financial disturbances have propagated nationally and
internationally with a
virulence not seen in the last 50 years. Nations thought to be managing their
economies well
have seen financial disturbances wipe away years of economic progress and create
massive
economic insecurity among their citizens. Reversals of international capital flows have
played
an important role in the crises in a number of countries, and the international
community has
been called on to provide financial support to a number of countries on an
unprecedented scale.
Given what has happened, it is natural and appropriate that there have been calls
at
highest political level for the reform of the international financial architecture. Indeed,
going
back to the Naples Summit in 1994, this has been a preoccupation of President Clinton
and his
administration. And since then any number of international groupings have considered
various
aspects of reforming the system.
The integration trilemma arises forcefully in the financial area -- with each of the
more
simplistic positions outlined above finding its advocates. First, those unconcerned with
governments' pursuit of public purpose were able to argue, in the course of the 1998
debate in
the United States over funding for the International Monetary Fund, that the IMF should
be
abolished.
Citing moral hazard arguments, the IMF's critics took the position that if there were
no
insurance against crises, the frequency and damage inflicted by crises would be
reduced. This is
an international extension of domestic arguments against deposit insurance and last
resort
lending. Perhaps these arguments are correct. But the experience of the 1930s is not
encouraging regarding the stability of unregulated financial systems.
Second, there are many who have sought to resolve the trilemma in this area by
resisting
the integration of national capital markets. Certainly, in retrospect it is clear that capital
flows to
a number of emerging markets in the mid-1990s were excessive and dangerous to both
borrowers
and lenders. With hindsight it is also clear that various government efforts to promote
and attract
short term capital flows -- including Mexico's issuance of tesobonos, Thailand offshore
banking
facility, and Russia's reliance on foreign holdings of domestic government debt -- were
a kind of
excessive integration. And certainly it is now even more widely understood that
liberalization of
domestic capital markets needs to be prudently measured with the pace at which
adequate
regulatory capacity is developed. But it would be a tragedy if the lesson learned from
recent
events was that the flow of capital from rich to poor countries was something that
should be
prevented rather than encouraged.
Third, there are those who would resolve the trilemma through giving global
institutions
much more power and resources. Thus, Henry Kaufman proposes a global financial
regulator,
Jeffrey Garten a global central bank, and George Soros a global credit insurer. If they
functioned
well, any one of these institutions could possibly have important beneficial effects. But
for the
moment at least, it is difficult to imagine nations ceding control over their money or their
banks
to an international institution, or asking their taxpayers to support public insurance of
large scale
private capital flows.
The sovereignty problems that arise from proposals that countries share common
moneys
to avoid exchange rate problems may prove equally profound. Indeed, European
economic and
monetary union may be the exception that proves the rule about the challenges of
integrating
national moneys -- following as it does a half-century long process of developing
integrated
political and economic institutions.
A number of countries have debated dollarization at various points with good
reason.
After all, Panama is the only country in Latin America with single digit 30 year
mortgage rates.
But, seignorage issues aside, using the dollar means accepting monetary policies
oriented to
American conditions -- a step proud countries may be reluctant to take. When it comes
to
managing money what may prove hard is reconciling our absolute need for sovereignty
with
other's need for national dignity.
The challenge for policy making in this area is to find solutions that respects
all three
dimensions of the trilemma. This is possible in a number of respects.
First, improved transparency and surveillance in international financial markets. If
one
were writing a history of the American capital market I would suggest to you that the
single most
important innovation shaping that capital market was the idea of generally accepted
accounting
principles. Achieving this internationally, and at the level of individual companies and
financial
institutions, is a win-win for the global economy and for individual nations. And there is
increasingly broad agreement across nations on the kind of transparency that counts.
Already the development of the IMF's Special Data Dissemination Standards have
encouraged much greater transparency of official data across a wide range of
countries. In line
with recent recommendations of working groups of key industrial and emerging
economies
convened in 1998 at the United States initiative (the so-called "G22"), these will soon be
expanded to include much better data on national foreign exchange liabilities: including
central
bank forward obligations and on the broader liabilities of the public, financial and
corporate
sectors.
At the same time the goal of transparency can and is increasingly being applied to
IMF
surveillance, including more extensive publication of staff reports, Article IV
recommendations
and the details of its lending programs and policy advice. Following the G22 working
party
report in this area, the IMF is developing a Code of Conduct on Monetary and Financial
Policies
that should be completed by Spring 1999, and will then be incorporated in its regular
assessments of member countries.
Second, improved financial regulation in the emerging economies. As mentioned
above,
the recent crises have taught that the supervisory and broader financial infrastructure
had not kept
pace with the rapid development of the domestic economy and of global financial
markets. Once
again, countries' own recognition of the need to put better systems in place, and a
relatively
broad consensus on what such systems look like -- have greatly eased the path of
international
reform. A major focus of recent international initiatives has simply been to develop and
disseminate the most up-to-date tools that countries can use to help them catch up to
the curve.
The Basle Committee and the International Organization of Securities
Commissions have
already developed core principles that can serve as a blueprint for efforts to improve
financial
supervision and regulation at the domestic level. This approach will shortly be
expanded with the
OECD's development of similar sets of principles for sound corporate governance.
To be sure, here, too, we can see the friction that can arise between global ends
and
national -- sovereign -- means. Common standards and principles will achieve little if
countries and
institutions do not implement them. And experience suggests that the lag between
words and
deeds can be long indeed. The collective global stake in timely prevention of crises and
the
contagion they cause will therefore call for creative thinking about more powerful
incentive
mechanisms. These might include use of enhanced disclosure requirements to
strengthen the
disciplining effects of the markets themselves. We will need also to explore ways of
building on
recent steps to improve cooperation among the international financial institutions in this
area and
upgrade their financial sector capability.
Third, it is in everyone's interest to develop much more effective systems for
managing
public and private financial risks and there is now general agreement on some of the
steps needed
to achieve this. Where the public sector is concerned, governments need to be much
more aware
of the potential risks posed by the maturity and scale of their foreign liabilities -- whether
these
arise out of sovereign borrowing, or the forward market activities of the central bank, or
private
borrowing that is subject to implicit or explicit public guarantees.
As part of this effort we should also be looking to improve private sector risk
management systems, on both the lender and the borrower side of the market: by
encouraging the
adoption of international accounting and disclosure standards within financial
institutions and at
the level of individual firms, and possibly by exploring the use of market-based
incentives -- such
as requiring banks to issue marketable subordinated debt -- to strengthen risk
management
practices and supplement the expertise of emerging market regulators.
Similar considerations could also be brought to bear in the ongoing review of the
Basle
risk-weighted capital regime, in order to make it more accurate and to remedy biases
toward
riskier kinds of lending -- for example, toward short-term interbank lending and riskier
sovereign
and corporate borrowers -- if and when these are found to exist.
Fourth, and perhaps most difficult, effective crisis resolution. Two recent
developments
have strengthened the IMF's capacity for responding to financial crises: the
Supplementary
Reserve Facility providing that when large quantities of finance are provided to respond
to
pressure from capital inflows, a premium will be charged; and the recent agreement
that in
certain very specific circumstances the IMF could lend into arrears. We have also seen
international agreement on the principle of creating a new facility for providing
contingent
finance to countries to help contain contagion.
That said, the controversies that have arisen in Asia and other troubled economies
in the
wake of IMF support programs have been vivid testament to the difficult issues of
balance that
such programs bring with them. Notably, in providing support it is clear that national
sovereignty
should be respected, politics should be understood, and the provision of support should
not
engender a backlash against its providers. Yet these criteria have always to be
balanced against
the need for credible policies that will contain the crisis, reduce the risk of future crisis,
and have
the potential to increase confidence.
In Asia, the problems related to "crony capitalism" were at the heart of the crisis
and that
was why structural reforms had to be a major part of the IMF's solution. On the other
hand, there
was an understandable negative response on the part of many of the citizens in
recipient countries
to foreign institutions' intervening in what many consider to be domestic political
decisions -- for
example, about the scale and nature of domestic social safety nets. Here, as in so
many areas, the
trilemma -- and the difficulties of managing it -- have perhaps been more obvious than
its
solution.
IV. Concluding Remarks: The Indispensable Nation
President Clinton has recognized very clearly the challenges described above. In
his
landmark address at the Council on Foreign Relations in September 1998 he spoke of
the need to
work globally "to tame the cycle of boom and bust" just as we have worked to do
domestically.
Recognizing the significance of international integration, he has also said that it is the
"challenge
of the millennial generation...to create a world trading system, attuned both to the pace
and scope
of a new global economy and to the enduring values which give direction and meaning
to our
lives."
The challenge of managing global integration is an especially important for the
United States as the world's largest, richest and strongest economy. If leadership in
managing
integration is going to come, it is likely to have to come from our country. And now, at a
time
when our economy is unprecedentedly strong, is a time when we should be able to do
our part.
We should be able to. Yet examining the political climate for pro-integration
policies in the United States today provides serious grounds for concern. The President
has not
been able to obtain negotiating authority for trade agreements. In the face of a financial
crisis,
IMF funding was achieved only after a great struggle. American support for the World
Bank and
other development banks has declined during the 1990s, and we are still remiss with
respect to
our UN obligations.
There are a number of reasons for this domestic ambivalence toward
internationalist
economic policies. The Cold War "fight Communism" rationale for economic
integration has
been removed. The popularization of politics has also probably played a role. I doubt
that
anyone focus-grouped the Marshall Plan -- or that it would have fared well if they had.
(There is
a reason it was not called the Truman plan.) And the power of concentrated narrow
interests
relative to broad dispersed ones is also surely relevant.
But I suspect another reason is the widespread sense that international integration
interferes with governments' ability to deliver the benefits the citizenry want. That is why
the
development of approaches that can reconcile integration, public purpose, and
sovereignty -- by
economists and others inside and outside of government -- is so profoundly important
for the
future.
|
||