World Economy: Vectors of the year

The most important of them will be the actions of the central banks of the United States, Eurozones and Japan

For the global economy, 2013 was the year of a powerful influx of money from two of the largest central banks-the United States and Japan. In 2014, instead of one of these channels, the third may occur.

Against the background of financial incentives, the growth of national economies in the United States and Japan not only accelerated. He caused a record for almost two decades the growth of companies on international stock exchanges. He dominated among other factors in the dynamics of world raw materials and foreign exchange markets. Finally, only a statement of intention to reduce this tributary, this tributary brought the currency of a whole group of large developing countries , whose courses decreased by a dollar by the end of a year by 15-20% or more.

Half of the volume of the entire world economy falls on the share of the United States, the countries of the Eurozone and Japan. In 2014, the Federal Reserve System (Fed) turns its program of financial incentives . Bank of Japan - continues in the same pace . And the European Central Bank, most likely, will begin a new one. And the influence of their measures will manifest itself far beyond the boundaries of three regions and markets. We are talking about this with experts from the USA and Germany .

It is the dollar rate that determines the price of oil. The exchange rate is the reason, the price of oil is a consequence

On December 18 last year, the Central Bank of the United States declared a decision long expected by the markets - on the beginning of reducing the volume of its current financial stimulation program of the American economy. She stipulated that the Fed bursts in the markets of state and mortgage bonds for $ 85 billion monthly, that is, more than $ 1 trillion a year. Since January, these monthly purchases have been reduced to $ 75 billion. But then new abbreviations will follow and, it is possible, during the coming year the program may be completely curtailed ...

Philip Levy , employee of the CICAG Council of International Affairs Research Center :
- This, of course, is important news, although participants in financial markets have long been excluded for this scenario. The interest rates on government bonds have now increased, although not much, from which it follows that the market has in advance in advance this in its calculations.

It must be assumed that as the entire “quantitative mitigation” program is folded, not only interest rates on loans will increase, but also the exchange rate of the dollar. By the way, if in the American economy these two trends became dominant, this would lead to some of its inhibition. But we see the opposite - in the third quarter, GDP growth was noticeably accelerated, which was largely facilitated by the “shale boom” in the energy sector.
It seems to me that the Central Bank of the United States was decided to curtail the financial stimulation program, precisely thanks to the improvement of the conjuncture in American industry. The reaction of markets to such optimism was the next growth after the federal reserve system announced its plans.

The current stage of the financial stimulation program for the largest economy of the world is the third for the period since September 2008, the peak of a recent financial crisis. During this time, the federal reserve system bought in markets a variety of financial instruments for trillion dollars. On the one hand, this money was poured into the financial system, and on the other hand, such purchases now aggravate the balance of the Fed itself.

Diana Furshgot-PRO, employee of the Manhattan Institute of Political Research in New York, in the past-the chief economist of the US Department of Labor :
- The federal reserve system should not buy state and mortgage bonds in such volumes! This is the prerogative of the financial companies of the private sector. First, the state made one attempt to revive the economic situation through large -scale financial incentives. Nothing came of it.
However, the first attempt was followed by both the second and the third - equally uninhabited, in my opinion. Strange, but the financial authorities, it seems, did not really think that they are possible with their monetary policy, they only worsen the situation, focusing on their own balance so many assets and restraining the growth of interest rates. Which, in turn, underestimated the exchange rate of the American currency.
In response, the financial authorities of Japan, Great Britain, Switzerland, and to some extent-some other European countries, accepted the countermeasures for the devaluation of their currencies, which, in my opinion, only harm the global economy. History shows that the periods of sustainable economic growth of the United States are associated with a strong dollar, and not with its artificial underestimation.

For example, IMF analysts now expect more from Western countries and, accordingly, less from the BRICS countries.

For the period from the autumn of 2008, the own balance of the US Federal Reserve, due to the bought out of various kinds of securities, “problematic” and not very, grew several times and by the beginning of 2014, according to preliminary estimates, exceeded $ 4 trillion. For comparison, this is almost a quarter of the annual volume of the American economy or approximately twice as much as the total volume of the Russian economy.

So far, annual inflation in the United States only a little exceeds 1%. However, how significant is the inflationary threat of such monetary injections into the economy for the future?

Philip Levy:
- This amount attracted general attention. Recall that before the crisis on the balance of the Central Bank of the United States, there were only $ 800 billion, so it grew many times. And by the way, it will grow further, although more slowly. Therefore, fears of acceleration of inflation, it seems, begs.
However, it should be remembered that inflation depends not only on the influx of the money supply created by the Central Bank, but also on the speed with which this cash turns into commercial banks. And in recent years, banks have not at all sought to part with this liquidity, providing loans to companies and enterprises.
As a result, a variety of price indicators in the United States, including manufacturers' price indices, do not show a special increase in growth. Using a car metaphor if you press on the gas, and all gasoline goes to the engine, the car rushes rapidly, but if there are leaks in the system somewhere, this will not happen.

Nevertheless, if the increase in the volume of bank lending of companies and enterprises in the United States will significantly accelerate, this will require the Federal Reserve System of immediate anti -inflationary measures, first of all, an increase in basic interest rates, the former chief economist of the US Department of Labor believes:

Diana Furshgot-PRO:
- If commercial banks activate lending, and the federal reserve system will not increase interest rates on time, then, I'm afraid, this may warm up inflation. The monetary policy of the Central Bank of the United States allowed commercial banks to accumulate huge amounts of funds on its balance sheets, but this did not affect the credit activities of banks.
This was partly due to the more stringent regulation of the business of banks that has developed in the United States in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and with a deficiency of promising business projects, but mainly with the general uncertainty of the investment climate.
Be that as it may, with an increase in consumer confidence in the United States and the accompanying revival of credit activity of banks, the pace of economic growth in the country can easily exceed the current about 2% on average. And then the federal reserve system needs to be on the alert.

The total amount of injections into the American financial system - only at the last stage of the post -crisis program of financial stimulation - exceeded one trillion dollars. Investors transferred a significant part of these funds either to financial instruments with much more profitability than bonds (in the same shares, for example), or to markets of other countries where interest rates were higher than in the United States, and therefore the profitability of investments promised to be much larger.

This, first of all, is about large developing countries, but not only. For example, in Europe, the main stock indices, as in the USA or Japan, showed in 2013 rapid growth-by 15-25%. Now the flow of money from the United States will gradually decrease. What influence can this have on the financial markets of the Eurozone countries?

Ferdinand Fihtner , employee of the German Institute of Economic Research, Berlin :
- Indeed, the federal reserve system not only determines the monetary policy in the United States itself, but also has a significant impact on the financial markets of other countries. It is enough to recall what shock in the markets of many developing countries caused only the first statement of the US Central Bank that he could soon begin to reduce the financial incentive program.
And now, when the volumes of purchase of bonds are really reduced to them, the consequences - to one degree or another, will appear everywhere. But first of all, of course, in the markets of developing countries.
In Europe, it seems to me, this influence will be minimal - the fact is that the European Central Bank, in order to counteract, will launch its own financial stimulation program. But in general, be that as it may, we will obviously see some inhibition of the global economic situation.

The only truly bright spot that I see today in the entire industrial sector of the American economy is precisely energy

Let us explain what European incentive program we are talking about. At the end of 2011 and at the beginning of 2012, the European Central Bank for only three months provided to banks of the Eurozone countries - in the name of expanding the lending of the region’s economies - preferential and relatively long -term loans for a total amount of more than one trillion of euros. That is, a third more than the US Central Bank bought bonds for the whole of 2013.

However, a significant part of these funds did not reach the economy of the eurozone. European banks, like American, were by no means in a hurry to part with this money. Having corrected their own balances to one degree or another, they returned most of the funds received back to the European Central Bank - to their own accounts in it.

As a result, as in the United States, these injections have not yet had inflation consequences for the Eurozone: the current increase in prices in the countries of the Unified European currency is even less than in the USA - less than 1% per year.

Now, from the European Bank, they expect, among other possible measures , new large -scale loans to banks in Eurozone - to accelerate the economic growth of the region, which had barely emerged from the recession, which lasted one and a half years .

True, this time the European Bank, it is possible, will make these loans purely “targeted”: judging by some messages, they will be able to receive those banks that undertake to send almost the entire amount to lending to companies and enterprises. The volume of this lending has been reduced in the eurozone for almost three consecutive years, which, by the way, has become one of the main reasons for the recent recession. Can a new lending program turn this trend?

Klaus-Jurgen Herman , Researcher at the German Institute of World Economics, Kil: Kil :
- Unlike, say, the Central Banks of the United States or Japan, the European Central Bank pursues a different, more passive financial policy. He does not buy bonds in large volumes, preferring to directly lend to the banks of the region.
As soon as the money supply in the eurozone has grown significantly, it was immediately interpreted as a sign of a threat. But it was worth the influx of liquidity to banks to be reduced, in several countries of the eurozone there were problems with lending to companies and enterprises. At the moment, this problem is still very acute, for example, in Spain and Italy.
Of course, the European Bank will try to turn off the trend, but our analysis of its previous attempts has demonstrated that the effect on the economy was, alas, not so significant. Therefore, I would like to warn against too big expectations against the new initiative of the European Central Bank ...

Ferdinand Fihtner:
- It is quite difficult to predict how this program will affect the economic growth of the Eurozone countries. And that's why. Firstly, we do not yet know which banks will take this opportunity, and how many of them it will be. We can only assume, based on past experience, that, most likely, most of the preferential loans will go to banks of the countries of southern Europe, as the most acutely in need of financial support.
Secondly, we still do not know what exactly is hidden behind the plans of the “targeted” lending? Indeed, in the past, the loans of the European Central Bank (ECB) were also, like, purposeful.
Now , the bank makes it clear that this money will go to improve the real economy - in other words, it should be received by companies and enterprises. This did not happen before. Including because, for example, banks in the countries of southern Europe provided them from the ECB in the form of loans to their governments, not enterprises. Although, of course, both of them were urgently needed in new money.
Whether this will be possible to avoid in the future is not a fact. Therefore, I somewhat skeptically perceive such plans of the European Bank. However, if they succeed in selling them, if new loans really go to companies and enterprises of the eurozone, this will certainly become a powerful impetus for the entire European economy.

After at the end of May last May, the Central Bank of the United States first announced the possibility of turning the financial stimulation programs in the foreseeable future, the most suffering from the money that had begun in foreign investors, in particular, developing countries as India, Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey or South Africa, that is, countries with weak or even negative trade balances, were most affected. For example, in Brazil, the excess of exports over imports has been minimal in 2013 over the past 13 years. The national currencies of these countries to the dollar decreased by the end of the year by 15-25%.

Now that in the United States, the folding of previous financial incentives really begins, what additional influence, in your opinion, can this have on the economies of the same group of countries ?

Philip Levy:
- There really is something to worry about. The effect of the gradual folding of the American financial stimulation program will manifest long before its complete completion. Including - in the form of the expected increase in interest rates, both in the USA and in the eurozone and Japan.
In all these three regions (components of almost half of the world economy and therefore - exclusively for it important), interest rates remain at minimum levels for a long time. Therefore, investors and transferred their capital to other regions of the world, where they could bring greater return.
Figuratively speaking, if earlier these leading economies “exhaled” capital, now the United States and, possibly, Eurozone and Japan are ready to “breathe it” again. In the United States, he has already begun to return.
And it turns out that if the countries that Western capital came to use this favorable period to carry out the necessary structural reforms, then investors will not leave them. If the reforms were not carried out (and, it seems, this is how things, say, in Brazil or India), then this capital will leave them back as swiftly as he came.

Diana Furshgot-PRO:
- Everything, in my opinion, will depend on economic policy in a particular country. There are promising investment projects everywhere, but not in all countries an investment climate is such that these projects can successfully come true.
Here is just an example. Mexico authorities have recently allowed private foreign capital to the National Oil Industry. And, according to my forecasts, only this can immediately add 1-2 percentage points to the total growth of the Mexican economy.
But there are other examples. Say, the new, levocentric government Chile takes a not quite friendly course in relation to the private sector, and this, in my opinion, will adversely affect the economic growth of the country.
In a word, it is the internal economic policy that seems to me incommensurable factor of those that generally determine the investment activity of both their domestic entrepreneurs and the influx of foreign capital, or the exchange rate of its currency than those measures taken by the Central Bank of the United States ...

The periods of sustainable economic growth of the United States are associated with a strong dollar, and not with its artificial underestimation

Many macro -propriets today suggest such a development of events in 2014 for the global economy. As the financial stimulation program reduced to the United States (and therefore the number of new dollars flowing to a variety of financial markets, including raw materials), as well as as oil production in certain countries expand, including the United States itself, world oil prices will gradually decrease, although not radically.

А раз так, продолжают сторонники тех же прогнозов, то курс американского доллара будет укрепляться по отношению к другим валютам, включая и евро. В какой мере вы разделяете подобные сценарные прогнозы?

Klaus-Jurgen Herman:
- Действительно, если следовать экономическим учебникам, подобные прогнозы вполне оправданы. Более жесткая финансовая политика ведет к замедлению экономической активности. Это, в свою очередь, сокращает общий спрос на энергоносители и ведет, соответственно, к укреплению доллара по отношению к другим валютам. Чисто теоретически — все верно.
Однако пока - это лишь ожидания. В том числе и потому, что не стоит недооценивать грядущую экономическую конъюнктуру в самих США. Если она окажется благоприятной, то, не исключено, что события будут развиваться, скорее, в противоположном направлении: спрос на энергоносители вырастет, а курс доллара, наоборот, либо снизится, либо останется на нынешних уровнях.
Наконец, необходимо учитывать различные быстроменяющиеся факторы. Например, мы видим, что, вопреки всем прогнозам, цены на нефть, несмотря на относительно спокойную сейчас ситуацию в нефтедобывающих странах Ближнего Востока (я здесь прежде всего имею в виду Иран), остаются стабильными и не снижаются.
Если бы все было так просто и предсказуемо, мы бы уже сейчас заметили существенное оживление на всех мировых рынках. Так что прогнозирование в этой области по-прежнему остается очень сложным, а иногда вообще невозможным делом.

Диана Фуршгот-Рот:
- Добыча нефти в Соединенных Штатах будет расти, это несомненно. Теперь стране нужны новые нефтепроводы, а также согласие Конгресса – и Америка превратится из чистого импортера нефти в значимого ее экспортера. Снижение внутренних цен на энергоносители должно также привлечь в страну более энергоемкие производства – в частности, металлургические. Единственное по-настоящему яркое пятно, которое мне видится сегодня во всем промышленном секторе американской экономики, это именно энергетика.
Что касается курса доллара, то он зависит, в первую очередь, от политики Федеральной резервной системы в отношении процентных ставок. Но какой бы она ни была, именно курс доллара определяет цену нефти. Обменный курс – это причина, цена нефти – следствие. Цена нефти, как таковая, равно как и физические объемы добычи нефти, на курс доллара мало влияют...

В США весь экспорт не превышает 12-13% общего объема национальной экономики - все остальное поглощает гигантский внутренний рынок. Тогда как в отдельных странах Европы доля экспорта может достигать 30-40% ВВП. Соответственно - разнится и значимость текущей динамики обменного курса национальной валюты для общего экономического роста...

Фердинанд Фихтнер:
- Безусловно, наплыв ликвидности в результате мер финансового стимулирования экономики в США оказал значительное влияние на самые разные международные рынки, включая и нефтяной – инвесторы всячески стремились ее пристроить максимально выгодно. Кстати, не исключаю, что эти деньги привели также и к росту цен на недвижимость у нас, в Германии.
Начавшееся сокращение притока этих денег - по идее! - должно привести к снижению цен на нефть. Кроме того, любое ужесточение денежной политики всегда благоприятно отражается на национальной валюте той или иной страны, и в этом смысле укрепление доллара выглядело бы вполне логичным.
А такое развитие событий лишь пошло бы на пользу европейской экономике. Коль скоро энергоносители могут подешеветь, а валюта США, как главного для Европы экспортного рынка, – подорожать, для европейского экспорта в этом случае откроются новые возможности. Мы от этого только выиграем.

Если же реформы не были проведены, этот капитал уйдет обратно столь же стремительно, как и пришел

И еще об одних прогнозах. С одной стороны, мало кто из экспертов оспаривает то, что большую часть прироста всей мировой экономики в 2014 году, каким бы он в итоге ни оказался, обеспечат, как и в предыдущие годы, крупнейшие развивающиеся страны. Такие, в первую очередь, как Китай, а также некоторые другие из стран БРИКС - Индия или Бразилия, с их огромными внутренними рынками.

С другой стороны, наиболее принципиальной для роста мировой экономики, с учетом нынешних в ней тенденций, считается теперь динамика в таких крупнейших ее центрах как США, еврозона и Япония, на долю которых, вместе взятых, приходится, напомним, практически половина объема всей экономики мира. Как вам представляется взаимосвязь этих двух динамик? Что для чего будет являться определяющим?

Фердинанд Фихтнер :
- Мировая экономика - весьма сложная и взаимообусловленная система. Например, при благоприятной конъюнктуре в США страна расширяет свой импорт, что, в свою очередь, стимулирует европейский, японский и китайский экспорт. И наоборот, Китай, при динамичном развитии своей экономики, сможет больше покупать западных товаров, что, естественно, порадует и Европу, и США. Так что иногда бывает довольно трудно определить, кто кого вытаскивает из экономических кризисов.
В 2014 году, как мне кажется, определяющий импульс будет исходить от индустриально развитых стран. Последние данные по экономике США или Японии вселяют немалые надежды. Вполне вероятно, что именно Соединенные Штаты, как локомотив всей мировой экономики, потянут за собой и другие страны. Тогда и они окажутся под благотворным влиянием общего роста.

Филип Леви:
- Здесь многое зависит от того, что мы имеем в виду под “двигателем роста”. Если – собственно темпы прироста ВВП, то, безусловно, тон задают некоторые из стран БРИКС. Ведь даже по скромным прогнозам, объем экономики Китая увеличится в 2014 году процентов на семь!.. Хотя следует помнить, что не все страны БРИКС равнозначны для мировой экономики. Китай по своему весу в ней намного превосходит, например, Бразилию, Россию или Индию.
Но если взять за точку отсчета те ожидания, которые имели место всего полгода назад, относительно вклада в общий рост мировой экономики стран БРИКС, с одной стороны, а США, Европы и Японии - с другой стороны, то они сильно изменились. И, например, аналитики Международного валютного фонда теперь больше ожидают в этом смысле от западных стран и, соответственно, меньше - от стран БРИКС.
Кстати, еще недавно в экономических кругах на Западе довольно популярным был тезис о том, что Китай, как абсолютный лидер среди развивающихся стран, добился определенной независимости от экономик остального мира. Но я, честно говоря, убедительных доводов в его пользу не вижу. Скорее, наоборот: любое замедление экономического роста, например, в Европе болезненно отразится на Китае, для которого Евросоюз – крупнейший экспортный рынок. И, в свою очередь, если забуксует экономика Китая, это почувствует на себе весь остальной мир...