Coping with Commodity Volatility: Macroeconomic Policies for Developing Countries Jeffrey Frankel Harpel Professor of Capital Formation & Growth June 19, 2015
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Coping with Commodity Volatility: Macroeconomic Policies for Developing Countries Jeffrey Frankel Harpel Professor of Capital Formation & Growth June 19, 2015 Prequel: In 2008, the government of Chilean President Bachelet & her Finance Minister Velasco ranked low in public opinion polls. By late 2009, they were the most popular in 20 years. Why? Evolution of approval & disapproval of four Chilean presidents Presidents Patricio Aylwin, Eduardo Frei, Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet Data: CEP, Encuesta Nacional de Opinion Publica, October 2009, www.cepchile.cl. Source: Engel et al (2011). 2 Commodity prices had big swings over 2005-15. Oil Oil = average petroleum spot price IMF WORLD ECONOMIC OUTLOOK (WEO) Uneven Growth: Short- and Long-Term Factors April 2015 3 Minerals, hydrocarbons, & agricultural products have highly variable prices Major Commodity Exports in Latin American countries and Standard Deviation of Prices on World Markets Frankel (2011) * World Bank analysis (2007 data) Leading Commodity Export* ARG BOL BRA CHL COL CRI ECU GTM GUY HND JAM MEX NIC PAN PER PRY SLV TTO URY VEN Soybeans Natural Gas Steel Copper Oil Bananas Oil Coffee Sugar Coffee Aluminum Oil Coffee Bananas Copper Beef Coffee Natural Gas Beef Oil Standard Deviation of Log of Dollar Price 1970-2008 0.28 1.82 0.59 0.41 0.76 0.44 0.76 0.48 0.47 0.48 0.42 0.76 0.48 0.44 0.41 0.23 0.48 1.82 0.23 0.76 Price volatility of commodities matters even for developing countries that don’t export them: Food & energy have much larger weights in EM consumption baskets than in Advanced Countries’. GS Macro Economics Research, Goldman Sachs, Nov. 12, 2014 How can developing countries cope with volatility in their terms of trade? Choices of macroeconomic policies & institutions can help manage the volatility. Too often, historically, they have exacerbated it: Pro-cyclical macroeconomics (i) capital flows; (ii) money & credit; and (iii) fiscal policy. 6 (i) Pro-cyclical capital flows According to intertemporal optimization theory, capital flows should be countercyclical: In practice, it does not always work this way. Capital flows are more procyclical than countercyclical. flowing in when exports do badly and flowing out when exports do well. Gavin, Hausmann, Perotti & Talvi (1996); Kaminsky, Reinhart & Vegh (2005); Reinhart & Reinhart (2009); and Mendoza & Terrones (2008). Theories to explain this involve capital market imperfections, e.g., asymmetric information or the need for collateral. 7 (ii) Pro-cyclical monetary policy If the exchange rate is fixed, surpluses during commodity booms can lead to: Rising reserves, Excessive money & credit, Excess demand for goods; overheating, Inflation, Asset bubbles. 8 Macro effects of commodity boom Inflation shows up especially in non-traded goods & services, such as construction. 9 Pro-cyclical real exchange rate Countries undergoing a commodity boom experience real appreciation of their currency The resulting shift of land, labor & capital out of manufacturing, and into the booming commodity sector might be appropriate & inevitable, to the extent it is expandable, especially if the commodity boom is permanent. But the shift out of manufacturing into NTGs can be an undesirable macroeconomic side effect – the “disease” part of Dutch Disease. 10 (iii) Procyclical fiscal policy Fiscal policy has historically tended to be procyclical in developing countries especially among commodity exporters: Cuddington (1989), Gavin & Perotti (1997), Tornell & Lane (1999), Kaminsky, Reinhart & Végh (2004), Talvi & Végh (2005), Mendoza & Oviedo (2006), Alesina, Campante & Tabellini (2008), Ilzetski & Végh (2008), Medas & Zakharova (2009), Medina (2010), Arezki, Hamilton & Kazimov (2011), Erbil (2011) and Céspedes & Velasco (2014). Correlation of income & spending mostly positive – in comparison with industrialized countries. 11 Correlations between Gov.t Spending & GDP 1960-1999 procyclical Adapted from Kaminsky, Reinhart & Vegh (2004) countercyclical G always used to be pro-cyclical for most developing countries.12 The procyclicality of fiscal policy, continued A reason for procyclical public spending: receipts from taxes & royalties rise in booms. The government cannot resist the temptation to increase spending proportionately, or more. Then it is forced to contract in recessions, thereby exacerbating the swings. 13 Two budget items account for much of the spending from oil booms: (i) Investment projects. Investment in practice may be “white elephant” projects, which are stranded without funds for completion or maintenance when the oil price goes back down. Gelb (1986). Rumbi Sithole took this photo in “Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta,in Nigeria. The state government received a windfall of money and didn't have the capacity to have it all absorbed in social services so they decided to build a Hilton Hotel. The construction company did a shoddy job, so the tower is leaning to its right and it’s unsalvageable..” (ii) The government wage bill. Oil windfalls are often spent on public sector wages. Medas & Zakharova (2009) Spending rises in booms, but is downward-sticky. Arezki & Ismail (2013). 14 The procyclicality of fiscal policy, cont. An important development -some developing countries, including commodity producers, were able to break the historic pattern in the most recent decade: taking advantage of the boom of 2002-2008 to run budget surpluses & build reserves, thereby earning the ability to expand fiscally in the 2008-09 crisis. Chile, Botswana, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea… How were they able to achieve counter-cyclicality? 15 Correlations between government spending & GDP 2000-09 procyclical Adapted from Frankel, Vegh & Vuletin (JDE, 2013) countercyclical Last decade, about 1/3 developing countries switched to countercyclical fiscal policy: Negative correlation of G & GDP. How can countries cope with high volatility in their terms of trade? Not by policies that try to suppress price volatility: Price controls Export controls Stockpiles Marketing boards Producer subsidies Blaming derivatives Nationalization Banning foreign participation Four policy questions 1. How can a country avoid excessive credit creation & inflation in a commodity boom ? & balance of payments crisis in a bust? Allow some currency appreciation/depreciation. 2. Nominal anchor for monetary policy: What is it to be, if not the exchange rate? CPI? 3. Fiscal policy: How can governments be constrained from over-spending in boom times? Fiscal rule? 4. What microeconomic arrangements can reduce macroeconomic volatility? 18 How can countries cope with high volatility? Four ideas that may help manage volatility Micro Tried & tested: 1) Hedging Untried: 2) Debt denomination Macro 3) Fiscal policy 4) Monetary policy 1) For financial hedging against fluctuations in $ price of the export commodity - Use options to hedge against downside fluctuations of the commodity price. Mexico does it annually for oil. thereby mitigating the 2009 & 2015 downturns, for example. Why not use the futures or forward market? Ghana tried it, for cocoa. But: The minister who sells forward may get meager credit if the commodity price goes down, and lots of blame if the price goes up. Also the maturity may not go out far enough. For some commodities, futures contracts are unavailable at long horizons “Managing Volatility in Low-Income Countries: The Role and Potential for Contingent Financial Instruments,” 21 IMF SPRD & World Bank PREM, approved by Reza Moghadam & Otaviano Canuto, Oct. 2011. Fig.7 p.21. 2) Another idea for hedging against fluctuations in $ price of the export commodity For those who borrow, e.g., an African country developing oil discoveries: link the terms of the loan, not to $ or €, nor to the local currency, but to the price of the export commodity. Then debt service obligations match revenues. Debt crises in 1998: Indonesia, Russia & Ecuador in 2014-15: Nigeria, Ghana & Venezuela: <= the $ prices of their oil exports fell, and so their debt service ratios worsened. Indexation of debts to oil prices might have prevented the crises. An old idea. Why has it hardly ever been tried? “Who would buy bonds linked to commodity prices?” Answer -- There are natural customers: Power utilities, refiners, & airlines, for oil; Steelmakers, for iron ore; Millers & bakers, for wheat; Etc. Presumably the firms don’t want the credit risk. => The World Bank should intermediate: Link client-country loans to the oil price; then lay off the oil risk by selling precisely that amount of oil-linked World Bank bonds to the private sector. 3. How Can Countries Avoid Pro-cyclical Fiscal Policy? “Good institutions.” 24 Who achieves counter-cyclical fiscal policy? Countries with “good institutions” ”On Graduation from Fiscal Procyclicality,” Frankel, Végh & Vuletin; J.Dev.Econ., 2013. 25 The quality of institutions varies, not just across countries, but also across time. 1984-2009 Frankel, Végh & Vuletin,2013. 26 The comparison holds not only in cross-section, but also across time. ”On Graduation from Fiscal Procyclicality,” Frankel, Végh & Vuletin; J. Devel. Econ., 2013. 27 How can countries avoid fiscal expansion in booms? What are “good institutions,” specifically? Rules? Budget deficits or debt brakes? Have been tried many times. Usually fail. 28 Countries with Balanced Budget Rules frequently violate them. BBR: Balanced Budget Rules DR: Debt Rules ER: Expenditure Rules Compliance < 50% International Monetary Fund, 2014 To expect countries to comply with the rules during recessions is particularly unrealistic (and not even necessarily desirable). Bad times: years when output gap < 0 Compliance worse in recession years International Monetary Fund, 2014 What specific institutions can help? Budget rules alone won’t do it. Rigid Budget Deficit ceilings operate pro-cyclically. Phrasing the target in cyclically adjusted terms helps solves that problem in theory; But in practice, overly optimistic forecasts by official agencies render rules ineffective. Frankel & Schreger, 2013, "Over-optimistic Official Forecasts in the Eurozone and Fiscal Rules," Rev. World Ec. An institution that others might emulate: The Chile model “A Solution to Fiscal Procyclicality: The Structural Budget Institutions Pioneered by Chile,” 2013, in Fiscal Policy and Macroeconomic Performance, edited by Luis Felipe Céspedes & Jordi Galí. I concluded that the key feature was the delegation to independent committees of the responsibility to estimate long-run trends in the copper price & GDP, thus avoiding the systematic over-optimism that plagues official forecasts in 32 other countries. Over-optimism in official forecasts Statistically significant bias among 33 countries (2011, 2013). If the boom is forecast to last indefinitely, there is no apparent need to retrench. BD rules don’t help. Frankel Leads to pro-cyclical fiscal policy: Worse in booms. Worse at 3-year horizons than 1-year. The SGP worsens forecast bias for euro countries. Cyclically adjusted rules won’t help the bias either. Frankel & Schreger (2013). Solution? 33 The example of Chile’s fiscal institutions 1st rule – Governments must set a budget target, 2nd rule – The target is structural: Deficits allowed only to the extent that (1) output falls short of trend, in a recession, or (2) the price of copper is below its trend. 3rd rule – The trends are projected by 2 panels of independent experts, outside the political process. Result: Chile avoided the pattern of 32 other governments, where forecasts in booms were biased toward optimism. 34 Chilean fiscal institutions In 2000 Chile instituted its structural budget rule. The institution was formalized into law in 2006. The structural budget surplus must be… 0 as of 2008 (was higher before, lower after), where “structural” is defined by output & copper price equal to their long-run trend values. I.e., in a boom the government can only spend increased revenues that are deemed permanent; any temporary copper bonanzas must be saved. 35 The Pay-off Chile’s fiscal position strengthened immediately: Public saving rose from 3 % of GDP in 2000 to 8 % in 2005 allowing national saving to rise from 21 % to 24 %. Government debt fell sharply as a share of GDP and the sovereign spread gradually declined. By 2006, Chile achieved a sovereign debt rating of A, several notches ahead of Latin American peers. By 2007 it had become a net creditor. By 2010, Chile’s sovereign rating had climbed to A+, ahead of some advanced countries. => It was able to respond to the 2008-09 recession. 36 In 2008, with copper prices spiking up, the government of President Bachelet had been under intense pressure to spend the revenue. She & Fin.Min.Velasco held to the rule, saving most of it. Their popularity fell sharply. When the recession hit and the copper price came back down, the government increased spending, mitigating the downturn. Bachelet & Velasco’s popularity reached historic highs by the time they left office. 37 Poll ratings of Chile’s Presidents and Finance Ministers And the Finance Minister?: August 2009 In August 2009, the popularity of the Finance Minister, Andres Velasco, ranked behind only President Bachelet, despite also having been low two years before. Why? Chart source: Eduardo Engel, Christopher Neilson & Rodrigo Valdés, “Fiscal Rules as Social Policy,” Commodities Workshop, World Bank, Sept. 17, 2009 38 4) The challenge of designing a monetary regime for countries where trade shocks dominate Developing countries differ from industrialized economies: 1. More exposed to terms of trade shocks especially volatile commodity prices. And more exposed to supply shocks a) such as natural disasters (hurricanes, cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis…) b) other weather events (droughts…), c) social unrest (strikes…), d) productivity shocks (“Are we the next Tiger economy?”). Developing countries have more trade shocks & natural disasters “Managing Volatility in Low-Income Countries: The Role and Potential for Contingent Financial Instruments,” IMF SPRD & World Bank PREM, approved by R.Moghadam & O.Canuto, Oct. 2011. Fig.1. 40 Demand vs. supply shocks An old wisdom regarding the source of shocks: One set of supply shocks: natural disasters Fixed rates work best if shocks are mostly internal demand shocks (especially monetary); floating rates work best if shocks tend to be real shocks (especially external terms of trade). R.Ramcharan (2007) finds floating works better. Common source of real shocks: trade. Terms-of-trade variability Prices of crude oil and other agricultural & mineral commodities hit record highs in 2008 & 2011. => Favorable terms of trade shocks for some => Unfavorable terms of trade shock for others (oil producers, Africa, Latin America…); (oil importers such as Korea, India…). Prices of oil & gas are the most volatile of all. 1970-2015 A New Ceiling for Oil Prices, Anatole Kaletsky, 1/14/2015 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/oil-prices-ceiling-and-floor-by-anatole-kaletsky-2015-01 The challenge of designing a monetary regime for countries where terms of trade shocks dominate the cycle, continued Fixing the exchange rate leads to pro-cyclical monetary policy: Money flows in during commodity booms. Excessive credit creation can lead to inflation. Example: Saudi Arabia & UAE during the 2003-08 oil boom. Money flows out during commodity busts. Credit squeeze can lead to excess supply, recession & balance of payments crisis. Example: Exporters of oil & other commodities in mid-1980s, 1997-98, or 2014-15. 44 Monetary regime, Floating accommodates terms of trade shocks: If terms of trade improve, currency automatically appreciates, preventing excessive money inflows, overheating & inflation. If terms of trade worsen, currency automatically depreciates, continued preventing recession & balance of payments crisis. Disadvantages of floating: Volatility can be excessive. One needs a nominal anchor. 45 Textbook theory says a country where trade shocks dominate should accommodate by floating. Confirmed empirically: Developing countries facing terms of trade shocks do better with flexible exchange rates than fixed exchange rates. Broda (2004), Edwards & L.Yeyati (2005), Rafiq (2011), and Céspedes & Velasco (2012). Céspedes & Velasco (2012), IMF Economic Review “Macroeconomic Performance During Commodity Price Booms & Busts” ** Statistically significant at 5% level. Constant term not reported. (t-statistics in parentheses.) Across 107 major commodity boom-bust cycles, output loss is bigger the bigger is the commodity price change & the smaller is exchange rate flexibility. 47 Monetary regime If the exchange rate is not to be the monetary anchor, what is? Popular choice: Inflation Targeting. But CPI targeting can react perversely to supply shocks & terms of trade shocks. 48 Each of the traditional candidates for nominal anchor has an Achilles heel. The CPI anchor does not accommodate terms of trade changes: IT tightens M & appreciates when import prices rise not when export prices rise. That is backwards. Targeting core CPI does not much help. Commodity exporters need an alternative anchor that is robust to trade shocks. 49 6 proposed nominal targets and the Achilles heel of each: Vulnerability Targeted variable Gold standard Commodity standard Price of gold Price of agric. & mineral basket Vulnerability Example Vagaries of world 1849 boom; gold market 1873-96 bust Shocks in Oil shocks of imported 1973-80, 2000-11 commodity Monetarist rule M1 Velocity shocks US 1982 Nominal income targeting Fixed exchange rate Nominal GDP $ Measurement problems Appreciation of $ Less developed countries (or €) (or € ) CPI Terms of trade shocks Inflation targeting EM currency crises 1995-2001 Oil shocks of 1973-80, 2000-11 Professor Jeffrey Frankel Needed: Nominal anchors that accommodate the shocks that are common in developing countries Supply shocks, e.g., droughts, floods, hurricanes: Nominal GDP Targeting. Terms of trade shocks e.g., fall in price of commodity export. NGDPT or PEP PEP 51 PEP Peg the Export Price accommodates terms of trade shocks [1] Proposal for an oil-exporting country that attempts to peg to a currency basket: add a barrel of oil into the basket. • E.g., Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan or Kuwait. • With oil in the basket, • money tightens & the currency appreciates when the world price of oil rises • and the currency depreciates when oil falls. [1] Frankel (2003). 52 Why is PEP better than a fixed exchange rate for countries with volatile export prices? PEP If the $ price of the export commodity rises , the currency automatically appreciates, moderating the boom. If the $ price of export commodity falls, the currency automatically depreciates, moderating the downturn & improving the balance of payments. 53 Why is PEP better than CPI-targeting for countries with volatile terms of trade? PEP If the $ price of imported commodity goes up, CPI target says to tighten monetary policy enough to appreciate the currency. Wrong response. (E.g., oil-importers in 2007-08.) PPT does not have this flaw . If the $ price of the export commodity goes up, PPT says to tighten money enough to appreciate. Right response. (E.g., Gulf currencies in 2007-08.) CPI targeting does not have this advantage. 54 Figure 2: When a Nominal GDP Target delivers a better outcome than IT Supply shock is split between output & inflation objectives rather than falling exclusively on output as under IT (at B). Figure 3: Can IT Deliver a better outcome than a Nominal GDP Target? NGDPT gives exactly the right answer if equal weights (simple Taylor Rule) capture what discretion would do. Even if not exact, the “true” objective function would have to put far more weight on P than GDP, or AS would have to be very steep, for the P rule to give a better outcome. …if the Aggregate Supply curve is steep (b is low, relative to a, the weight on the price stability objective) . Mathematical analysis: Which regime best achieves objectives of price stability and output stability? The goal: to minimize a quadratic loss function Λ= 2 ap + (y - 2 𝒚) where p ≡ the inflation rate, y ≡ the log of real output, 𝒚 ≡ the preferred level of output; a ≡ the weight assigned to the price stability objective. . Which regime best achieves objectives of price & output stability? continued • Any nominal rule, provided it is credible, can set expected inflation at the desired level (say, 0), • e.g., eliminating the inflation bias that discretion brings: • p e = Ep = (𝒚- 𝒚) b/a in Barro-Gordon (1982) model of dynamic inconsistency, • where the Aggregate Supply relationship is y = 𝒚 + b(p – p e) + u , • and 𝒚 ≡ potential output. Which regime best achieves objectives of price & output stability? But different rules => different outcomes, when shocks hit Rogoff (1985) & Fischer (1990). IT & NGDPT both neutralize AD shocks. That leaves AS shocks. continued NGDP rule dominates IT, if… a < (2 + b)b; Example 1: holds if b > a (AS flat, vs. loss-function lines). Example 2: holds if a = 1 (as in Taylor rule) and AS slope 1/b < (1+ 2 ) = 2.414. Under these conditions, the economy looks more like Figure 2 than like Figure 3: If inflation were not allowed to rise in response to an AS shock, the resulting GDP loss could be severe. => NGDPT dominates IT. Estimating AS equation I have estimated the AS slope for a few EMs. E.g., Kazakhstan, over the period 1993-2012. Exogenous terms of trade shocks: oil price fluctuations. Exogenous demand shocks: changes in military spending and income of major trading partners. The estimated AS slope is 1.66, statistically < 2.41. Supports the condition for NGDPT to dominate IT. Conclusion: middle-size middle-income commodityexporting countries should consider using nominal GDP as their target, in place of the CPI. Nominal GDP Targeting NGDPT is more robust with respect to supply shocks & terms of trade shocks, compared to the alternatives of IT or exchange rate targets. The logic holds whether the immediate aim is disinflation (as in 1980s, and again today monetary stimulus (as among big Advanced Cs or just staying the course. among many EM & developing countries); recently); How can countries that export commodities cope with the high volatility in their terms of trade? Recap: Four ideas that may help Micro: Hedge Macro: Countercyclical policy 1. Use options 3. Fiscal: protect (Mexico). independence of forecasts (Chile). 4. Monetary: Untried: 2. Link debt to commodity target NGDP. price. Tried & tested: References by the author Columns http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/jfrankel/ “Escaping the Oil Curse,” Project Syndicate, Dec.9, 2011. "Barrels, Bushels & Bonds: How Commodity Exporters Can Hedge Volatility," Oct.17, 2011. “Gulf Countries Urged to Switch Currency Peg to a Basket That Includes Oil,” VoxEU 7/9/08. “The Natural Resource Curse: A Survey of Diagnoses and Some Prescriptions,” 2012, in Commodity Price Volatility and Inclusive Growth in Low-Income Countries , R.Arezki et al., eds. (IMF); HKS RWP12-014. “How Can Commodity Exporters Make Fiscal and Monetary Policy Less Procyclical?” in Natural Resources, Finance & Development. R.Arezki, T.Gylfason & A.Sy, eds. (IMF), 2011. HKS RWP 11-015. “On Graduation from Fiscal Procyclicality,” “A Solution to Fiscal Procyclicality: The Structural Budget Institutions Pioneered with Carlos Végh & Guillermo Vuletin, Journal of Development Economics, 100, no.1, 2013; pp.32-47. Summary, VoxEU, 2011. by Chile,” 2013, in Fiscal Policy and Macroeconomic Performance, L.F. Céspedes & J. Galí, eds., Central Bank of Chile 2011. Summary: Chile's Countercyclical Triumph," June 2012. "Nominal GDP Targeting for Developing Countries," with Pranjul Bhandari; NBER WP 20898, 2015. Summary at VoxEU 8/21/2014. HKS Summary. “A Comparison of Product Price Targeting and Other Monetary Anchor Options, for Commodity-Exporters in Latin America," Economia, 2011. 63 References by others Rabah Arezki and Kareem Ismail, 2013, “Boom-Bust Cycle, Asymmetrical Fiscal Response and the Dutch Disease,” J. Development Economics, March, 256-67. Christian Broda, 2004, "Terms of Trade and Exchange Rate Regimes in Developing Countries," Journal of International Economics, 63(1), 31-58. Luis Céspedes & Andrés Velasco, 2012, “Macroeconomic Performance During Commodity Price Booms and Busts,” IMF Economic Review. Graciela Kaminsky, Carmen Reinhart & Carlos Vegh, 2005, "When It Rains, It Pours: Procyclical Capital Flows and Macroeconomic Policies," NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2004, 19, 11-82. Jeffrey Sachs, 2007, “How to Handle the Macroeconomics of Oil Wealth,” in Escaping the Resource Curse, M.Humphreys, J.Sachs & J.Stiglitz,eds. (Columbia U. Press: NY), 173-93. 64 65