'Great Demographic Reversal' & Shifting Wealth

 

China's rise since the 1980s has brought an era of low inflation and real interest rates; it also stimulated emerging economies. This combination has resulted in high prices for equities, real estate and commodities. The impact on personal income distribution has been positive globally, but negative within most countries. In a highly acclaimed book, Charles Goodhart and Manoj Pradhan announce the end of the golden age[1]. Changes in demography will reverse decades of trends: declining growth in wages and inflation, falling interest rates, and greater inequality between countries, while inequality is falling in many countries.

The main reason for this turning point is, Goodhart and Pradhan claim, the end of the supply shock on global labour markets, a product of mainly China´s demography cum globalisation. China's working age population is shrinking, its old-age dependency ratio is rising. Globalisation is on the retreat (not least as a result of the US policy of China's containment). As Martin Wolf aptly points out, the prophecy of imminent inflation is less significant than the book's analytical framework[2] - at least beyond the financial markets.

Fig. 1: China's demography by age cohorts, 1950-2100

Their forecast is not that new. The far-reaching and well written book by Goodhart and Pradhan is definitely to be recommended. But neither are its theses "original" nor "surprising", as the blurb suggests. In large parts, the thesis could have been written at the OECD Development Centre. Indeed, they were. Several publications and lectures since 2005 bear testimony to this; they have been dubbed ShiftingWealth [3] by the OECD in English; the German equivalent was christened Weltneuvermessung [4].

Our core argument since 2005 was that the integration of China and India into the world economy effectively doubled the potential labour force to be integrated into the world market economy. China brought in 750 million people of working age, India 450, and if we add the former "Eastern Bloc", the additional labour force amounted to 1.5 billion[5]. Real GDP growth clearly depends on the number of workers, either through the skills they deploy or their ideas. A simple production function, in which capital contributes one third of income (the rest is provided by low skilled labour and know-how) translates the demographic shock into wage effects. Since doubling the global labour supply halves the ratio of capital to labour, the productivity of unskilled labour is reduced - by just over 16 per cent. Equilibrium wages, which are clearing the labour market, fall by the same percentage. Foreign trade theory and its central globalisation theorem (Stolper-Samuelson) predicted that lowering the prices of wage-intensive goods would result in trimmed wages (for low skilled work) and richer profits.

Meanwhile, China's labour reserve army migrated from the hinterland, where employment is low-productive and mostly seasonal, to the productive urban area. This migratory flow was supplemented by those who had been laid off from unprofitable state enterprises. A dual labour market model from the 1950s, which we owe to Nobel Prize winner Arthur Lewis, illustrated the consequences: as long as the surplus of unproductive labour in rural areas had not melted away, pressure on real wages remained[6]. This kept profits high in China's modern sector - an incentive to reinvest there.

Fig. 2: Real wage index China 1979-2020

-          Median of weekly wages for full-time employees -

Meanwhile, rural labour supply has largely been redirected to the modern sector; in China, scarcity prices for labour are again being paid, and wages are rising. This is not only imminent, as Goodhart & Pradhan postulate, but has been happening for several years now (Fig. 2).

Fig. 3: Population trend in sub-Saharan Africa by age cohorts, 1950-2100

 

As for the future, it is not only China's demography that will determine the global level of labour-intensive goods and services, inflation and interest rates via subsistence wages of underemployed people. Africa and South Asia are at the forefront here, but are largely ignored by Goodhart and Pradhan. The United Nations predicts that Africa's working age population (15-24; 25-64) will rapidly increase ^[7]to over one billion people by 2050; by 2100 it will probably be two billion (Fig.3).

In South Asia (including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, etc.), the cohorts of the working age population will rise to about 1.6 trillion people by 2050 - only after that is a moderate decline predicted (Fig.4). If we add up the UN forecasts for sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the working-age population is expected to increase to more than 2.5 billion people in 2050. While in China the working-age population (15-64) will shrink by almost 200 million people between now and 2050, the working-age population in Africa (500 million) and South Asia (400 million) will increase by a total of almost one billion people.

So, the demographic reversal may not have started after all.

Certainly, it is unlikely that the two 'young' regions will integrate into the global economic division of labour as successfully as China has done since 1980. But the massive increase in the job-seeking population in Africa and South Asia will overshadow the comparatively small decline in China's working age cohort by 2050. Despite the book's title, demography is a weak aspect of Goodhart and Pradhan's book.

 

Fig. 4: Population trend South Asia by age cohorts, 1950-2100

 

Goodhart and Pradhan expect real interest rates to rise as a result of the demographic changes underway in the industrialised countries and in China. Their macro and financial orientation leads them astray when they explain the long fall in global real interest rates with China's hitherto high propensity to save, the reinvestment of China's supplier credits in US government bonds and the ageing of the population in developed countries. Some of the arguments are reminiscent of the empirically rejected Bernanke thesis that international current account imbalances can be explained[8] by the Asian glut of savings.

In explaining high savings in the Asian region, on the other hand,[9] an observation developed by Amartya Sen (1990) has received strong empirical support: the son preference (measured as the son-girl ratio, the result of abortion of female fetuses). For a sample of 22 countries, the OECD found[10] a strong finding: savings rates rose from 21% with a low level to 51% with a strong son preference. For China, where the sexes were and remain particularly unequally distributed due to the one-child policy (son/girl 1.2), Shang-Jin Wei[11]demonstrated a close empirical connection between savings rate and son preference in spatial and temporal dimensions. How will this gender effect, ignored by Goodhart and Pradhan, affect the propensity to save and interest rates in the future? So far, there is little evidence of the abandonment of gender-selective abortion in China or India.

Another structural explanation for persistently high savings rates[12] is the high level of corporate savings in manufacturing due to undervalued exchange rates. In the context of underdeveloped financial markets, the internal financing of Asian companies is dominated by the retention of profits or the creation of provisions. However, massive sustained appreciation of the weighted external value of the currency can translate into lower corporate savings, especially in emerging markets[13].

Conclusion: Will Goodhart and Prahan's thesis be confirmed that changes in global demography will reverse decades-long trends in interest rates, wages and inflation? Much will depend on how successfully the young but poor subcontinents of South Asia and Africa can integrate into the global economy. It cannot be ruled out that the effectively effective global labour supply will continue to cap wages and prices for labour-intensive goods and services. High savings rates, and thus low interest rates, will continue to accompany us even if mass abortions of female fetuses are carried out in Asia and companies there remain self-financed.

 

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[1] Charles Goodhart & Monoj Pradhan (2020), The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival, London: Pelgrave Macmillan, August. The book has several predecessors that can be traced back to 2015 (with Pratyancha Pardeshi). Cf. with http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/66775/.

[2] Martin Wolf (2020), Why inflation could be on the way back, Financial Times, 17. November.

[3] Martin Grandes, Nicolas Pinaud & Helmut Reisen (2005), "Macroeconomic Policies: New Issues of Interdependence", OECD Development Centre Working Papers No. 241, Januar.  Helmut Reisen (2005), China's and India's Implications for the World Economy, Basel University Lectures Series, erwähnt in Martin Wolf (2006), Answer to Asia's rise is not to retreat, Financial Times, 14^. März. Der term ShiftingWealth was established by OECD (2010), Perspectives on Global Development 2010: Shifting Wealth, Paris: OECD.

[4] Helmut Reisen (2008), "Die Neuvermessung des Welt", Internationale Politik, July/August 2008.

[5] See for example Helmut Reisen (2006), "Globalisation, Proletariat and Precariat", Internationale Politik, 1/2006.

[6] In order to eradicate rural poverty, China is now again pushing migration from rural areas.

[7] In highly developed countries, the 25-64 age cohort represents the working age population. In poor countries, this restriction would be inadmissible because of the shorter period of education and the importance of the informal sector. The 15-24 age cohort is therefore also relevant for labour supply.

[8] Menzie D. Chinn & Hiro Ito (2007), "Current account balances, financial development and institutions: Assaying the world "saving glut"", Journal of International Money and Finance, Volume 26, Issue 4, June 2007, S. 546-569.

[9] Amartya Sen (1990), "More than 100 million women are missing", The New York Review of Books, Vol. 37(20), S. 61-66.

[10] OECD (2010), Perspectives on Global Development 2010: Shifting Wealth, Paris: OECD.

[11] Shang-Jin Wei (2010), "The mystery of Chinese savings", Voxeu.org, 6. Februar.

[12] Niall Ferguson & Moritz Schularick (2007), "'Chimerica' and the Global Asset Market Boom", International Finance, Vol. 10.3, S. 215-239.

[13] Marcus Kappler, Helmut Reisen, Moritz Schularick & Edouard Turkisch (2012), "The Macroeconomic Effects of Large Exchange Rate Appreciations", Open Economies Review, vol. 24, S. 471-494.

Political Numbers

 

A lucid book[1] by the epistemologist Oliver Schlaudt (Heidelberg U) shows how fact-focused policy advice can undermine democratic decision-making. Performance indicators and rankings are "political numbers", they supposedly stand for rational decision-making. However, prior political judgements and dubious assumptions usually determine the mechanism by which a society that believes in numbers constantly nurtures the illusion that politics is basically superfluous.

This is particularly evident in the case of international organisations such as the IMF, OECD or World Bank, which are particularly far removed from political control mechanisms, or in the case of think tanks financed in a non-transparent manner. Such institutions are all too happy to ride their political agenda. From the perspective of principal-agent theory, two specific problems make it difficult to control international organisations: the long chain of delegations from voters to heads of government, and the common-agency problem[2].

Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director for Education and Skills and well-known as founder and coordinator of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies, once coined the phrase: "Without data, you are just another person with an opinion". Many found this slogan smart. Me too. On closer inspection, however, it is not just arrogant. The motto is misleading, even dangerous. For it nurtures the illusion that essential political issues (not only education policy) are determined by 'facts'. So policy advisors like to adorn their recommendations with the word "evidence-based". Parliaments, the press and politicians should better bow to the rule of experts as a result.

No doubt, a policy that believes it can do without scientific advice is 'blind' policy (as often embodied by the 45th President of the USA). Politics has a liability to consult research. It is therefore preferable that politics defines targets and goals first, then seeks (hopefully not only) scientific advice on the adequate means. The other extreme, however, in the field of economic policy can be labeled econocracy[3]. Schlaudt lists three dangers of purely science-based policy, of which I would like to give the following concrete examples:

·       Interference and encroachment: Economists act as disguised lobbyists - politicians without a mandate. In Germany, these include Bernd Raffelhüschen (U Freiburg) or Bert Rürup (Handelsblatt), advocating the funded pension system. Although funded schemes are not superior to the pay-as-you-go system[4], they represent a lucrative business for financial intermediairies. The combination of academia and lobbying (often with the help of think tanks) for the benefit of private sponsors and at the expense of the statutory pension was exposed wonderfully in the 2014 satirical ZDF show 'Die Anstalt'[5].

·       Futility thesis: According to Schlaudt, there is a danger that the dynamics of the feasible will overrun the discourse on what is desirable. Albert O. Hirschman called this the futility thesis, one of the three basic figures of reactionary thought (along with the perversity thesis and the jeopardy thesis)[6]. Hirschman's futility thesis holds that attempts at social transformation will be unavailing, that they will simply fail to "make a dent.". As an example Hirschman quotes Vilfredo Pareto who, referring to uniform international evidence on personal income distribution, argued that redistribution policies were ineffective.

·       Political negation: The most aggressive encroachment of econocracy denies political decisions the right to weigh in. In order to counter the alleged inflationary bias of politicians – notably in coalition governments, in federal states or in politically highly polarised countries - economists have advocated central bank independence[7]. Monetary policy has been removed from politicians´ authority in those countries that have granted their central bank independence by statute, law or even constitution. Budget policy should also submit to the rule of experts, if it were up to the conceptions of some economists[8], although budget decisions are prime political responsibility.

In terms of personnel policy, the appointment of Janet Yellen, the former head of the Federal Reserve, as Secretary of the Treasury has just done so in the USA. Accordingly, the enthusiasm of the leading (Keynesian) 'experts' was unanimous. A contrary path was taken with the election of Christine Lagarde, the former French Finance Minister, as President of the European Central Bank. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she remains more a politician (who is occasionally accused of overstretching the ECB's mandate in terms of gender and environmental policy) than a central banker.

At the beginning of the 20th century, sociologist and economist Max Weber examined in detail the role of experts in the process of political decision-making. In the value judgement dispute (Werturteilsstreit) with the historical school of economics (Kathedersozialisten Schmoller, Wagner, or Knapp) he argued together with Werner Sombart that it was never the task of empirical science to determine binding norms and ideals in order to be able to derive prescriptions for practice. Weber saw the danger of experts taking advantage of their privileged position and media presence to take a political stand. According to Weber, politics is about what is desirable, science about what is feasible. Only a few academics in the social sciences limit themselves to positive analysis, though, but are too eager to push their way into politics and the media with normative proposals.

 

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[1] Oliver Schlaudt (2018), Die politischen Zahlen: Über Quantifizierung im Neoliberalismus, Frankfurt/Main: Klostermann Rote Reihe 102.

[2] Nielson, D.L. and M. J. Tierney (2003), “Delegation to International Organizations: Agency Theory and World Bank Environmental Reform”, International Organization, Vol. 57(2), pp. 241–276.

[3] The term belongs to the vocabulary of pluralistic economics, which opposes in particular the dominance of neoclassical explanatory approaches. See Joe Earle, Cahal Moran and Zach Ward-Perkins (2016), The econocracy: The perils of leaving economics to the experts, Manchester University Press.

[4] Robert Holzmann and Joseph E. Stiglitz (2001), New Ideas about Old Age Security: Toward Sustainable Pension Systems in the 21st Century, World Bank, Washington DC, January.

[5] Private Vorsorge einfach erklärt (private pensions for dummys) | Die Anstalt, ZDF, 11. March 2014.

[6] Albert O. Hirschman (1991), The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA.

[7] Jakob de Haan and Sylvester Eijffinger (2016), „The Politics of Central Bank Independence”, De Nederlandsche Bank Working Paper No. 539

[8] See, for instance, Barry Eichengreen, Ricardo Hausmann & Jürgen von Hagen (1999), „Reforming Budgetary Institutions in Latin America: The Case for a National Fiscal Council“, Open Economies Review Vol. 10, S. 415–442.

 

Dismal Multilateral Development Finance

  The Dismal State of Multilateral Development Finance

In view of the tremendous funding needs for fighting global public bads - pandemics such as now the coronavirus, climate change, hunger, analphabetism or terrorism – multilateral development finance has since long been in bad shape. The multilateral development-finance system has become overly complex. One would like to think that the system is an orderly process guided by simple principles, but it is rather a non-system[1]. This non-system does not result from coherent design but is a child of spontaneous disorder. A rising treat is the rise of ´multilateralism à la carte` as large donors starve core budgets of UN agencies

Since the early 2000s, new actors, both public and private, have emerged as important sources of finance, in addition to MDBs, UN agencies and the bi-multilateral donor EU. The rise of emerging powers as new lenders (notably China), the creation of so-called vertical funds[2] to finance global health and other global commons, the growing role of non-governmental organisations and the increased presence of private philantropy are stressing the developing-country recipients. They complain about the administrative burdens imposed on them by donor missions, evaluation bureaucracies, policy dialogues and other strings attached to aid money.

The OECD has reviewed multilateral development finance since 2008; those reports have failed to capture the wide attention they deserve. Multilateral Development Finance 2020, a very infomative 140-pages report, has been published recently[3]. It provides a rich portrait of a system under stress. Its focus of attention are ODA-eligible international organisations, mostly UN agencies, multilateral development banks and “Vertical funds” - development financing mechanisms confined to single development domains (such as health) with mixed private and public funding sources.

In 2018, total funding to multilateral organisations covered by the OECD report reached a new all-time high, at USD 71.9 billion[4]. However, multilateral funding is now primarily driven by a rise in earmarked contributions – by some large countries cherrypicking the system. You could argue that this reflects bilateral funding disguised as multilateral.

In particular UN agencies (such as WFP, UNHCR or even UNCTAD) suffer from rising funding vulnerabilities, mostly a result of a drop in the share of core contributions to their budget. A high donor concentration (such as for IOM) can create such funding vulnerability as well. Figure 1 presents the 2016-18 data for UN agencies, MDBs and Vertical Funds[5].

 

Figure 1: Earmarking, Donor Concentration and Funding Vulnerability, 2016-18

Source: OECD, Multilateral Development Finance 2020

 

Who is responsible (among large DAC donors) for the dismal state of multilateral finance for ODA-eligible international organisations? Table 1 provides elements for an answer. Two large donors need to be singled out: Germany and the United States. The majority of their contributions to ODA-eligible multilaterals was increasingly earmarked for programmatic or project-type purposes rather than allocated to core budgets.

·       The United States has turned into an agressive cherrypicker of the multilateral system, rather unsurprisingly for the past Trump administration, but also before under Obama. During the period 2012 to 2018, the share of core multilateral contributions in ODA provided by the US fell from 18% to 11%. It will be worth watching whether President-elect Joe Biden is going to revert that trend.

·       Germany is now among the worst offenders, contrary to the country´s self image as the quintessential multilateralist. The share of core multilateral contributions in Germany´s ODA has dropped continuously over the 2010s, from 35% to round 20% of its ODA in 2017. Some may object that Germany is the biggest contributor to the EU, hence more multilateral than visible from country sources. But as shown in Table 1, the EU institutions don´t behave differently and contribute apparently little to the core budgets of ODA-eligible multilateral agencies.

·       By contrast, France and the United Kingdom have maintained their core budget funding as a share of ODA over the 2010s, France just below and the UK at around 40%. Italy, Spain and Portugal support multilateral core funding most, in relation to their ODA contributions (around 2/3).

 

Table 1: Top DAC Donors to ODA-Eligible Multilaterals, 2010s

Country	Total USD bn, 2018	Trend from 2016	% to Core 2018	Trend 2010s
United Kingdom	11.3	↗	36.3	→
United States	10.2	→	11.2	↘
Germany	10.0	↗	22.0	↘
France	6.1	↗	38.0	↗
Japan	5.0	↗	23.0	→
Italy	3.5	↗	56.8	↗
Canada	3.4	↘	24.4	↘
Memo: EU	4.4	↘	1.8	→

Source: OECD, Creditor Reporting System (database); own calculations.

 

Earmarking is not bad per se. The rise of earmarking may be attributable to the spike in humanitarian interventions of the past decade, for example. Those interventions account for a large share of the funding earmarked by DAC members through the multilateral development system. But there are significant cost of ´multilateralism à la carte´, i.e. multi-bi funding (earmarked bilateral aid routed via multilateral channels)[6]:

·       Multilateralism à la carte undermines universality, which affords every country a voice regardless its size. Earmarking may well imply less funding for so-called global public goods as it distorts the balance between supply and demand. This has been seen to slow responses to pandemics by UN agencies. Healing pandemics, such as the current coronavirus crisis or the former Ebola crisis in West Africa, or ending hunger in refugee camps (and elsewhere), are good examples of the need for a universal approach. Multilateral work programmes risk to become less needs driven and country choices distorted with rising donor domination.

·       The “tragedy of commons”[7] is reinforced by earmarking via institutional hollowing out. This hollowing out works in two related ways. First, staff and management attention and capacity are increasingly pulled away from original core activities approved by the broader membership. Second, power and accountability gradually shift away from the broader collective as multilateral institutions increasingly become viewed as a mere instrument to implement the spending choices of relatively few large donors, leaving smaller countries as passive bystanders.

·       Long debates on the reform of the Bretton Woods institutions have failed to restore representativeness to the system; the G7 countries still dominate decision making. The challenge to find ways to have small countries participate in global governance has not been resoved by the creation of the G20 bureaucracies.

The election of US President-elect Joe Biden gives some reason to hope for a return of the United States to some less conditional multilateralism. Germany, traditionally a close ally of the US, should step up contributions to core budgets of ODA-eligible agencies simultaneously. The United Nations need to be strengthened after a lost decade. A handle to speed up core contributions to the UN might be to link them to the widely demanded rise of budget contributuions to NATO. Alas, while NATO has a strong lobby with the arms industry, especially the American, the United Nations have not.

 

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[1] Helmut Reisen (2010), „The Multilateral Donor Non-System: Towards Accountability and Efficient Role Assignment”, http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/journalarticles/2010-5, February.

[2] Stephen Browne and Roberto Cordon (2015), “Vertical Funds: Lessons for Multilateralism and The UN”, Future United Nations Development System, CUNY Graduate Center, Briefing 25, January.

[3] OECD (2020), Multilateral Development Finance 2020, https://doi.org/10.1787/e61fdf00-en.

[4] Ignore for a moment that the DAC has recently changed ODA reporting rules to include transactions that require no financial sacrifice. This deprives ODA of its meaning as a gauge of aid effort, and vitiates the point of setting the U.N. ODA target. The changes have also rendered ODA incoherent as a statistical measure, making it a faulty tool for monitoring and analysis. ODA now fails to meet basic statistical quality standards. See Simon Scott (2018), “A note on current problems with ODA as a statistical measure”, Brookings, September.

[5] The list of ODA-eligible international organisations currently contains some 360 entries. It can be downloeaded as Excel file here https://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/annex2.htm.

[6] Owen Barder, Euan Ritchie, and Andrew Rogerson (2019), “Contractors or Collectives?” Earmarked Funding of

Multilaterals, Donor Needs, and Institutional Integrity: The World Bank as a Case Study, CGD Policy Paper 153, Center for Global Development, July.

[7] Hardin, Garrett (1968). "The Tragedy of the Commons",  Science,  Vol. 162 (3859), pp. 1243–1248. The “tragedy of the commons” denotes a situation in a shared-resource system where individual users, acting independently according to their own self-interest, behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling the shared resource through their collective action. The original concept referred to the effects of unregulated grazing on common land (also known as a "common") in Great Britain and Ireland.