Tag: doom loop

What is a Doom Loop?

Is a global recession imminent?

Probably. Macroeconomic forecasting is the stupidest of sports, but it is looking quite likely, yes.

How will recession start, how will it play out, and how long will it last? I don’t have the faintest idea, and trust me, nobody knows for sure.

But certain channels of both cause and effect (and sometimes both at the same time, because macro is hard) can be readily identified. And one such channel in today’s day and age is that of a ‘doom loop’.

A country is at risk of a doom loop when a shock to one part of its economic system is amplified by its effect on another. In rich countries, central banks should have the power to halt such a vicious cycle by standing behind government debt, stabilising financial markets or cutting interest rates to support the economy. But in the euro zone, the ECB can only do this to a degree for individual countries.

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/06/22/what-is-the-doom-loop-in-the-euro-zone

I haven’t taught international macro for a while now, but when I used to, I would explain this to my students by calling it the Mamata Banerjee/Narendra Modi/Raj Thackeray problem. I hope your curiosity is piqued!

For an economic union of political entities to work, there are (very broadly speaking) four things that must be present:

  1. A monetary union (which the EU has)
  2. A fiscal union (this is the Mamata Banerjee angle, explained below)
  3. Capital mobility (Narendra Modi)
  4. Labor mobility (Raj Thackeray)

Now, bear in mind that my examples are from a while back. I am referring to Mamata Banerjee’s first stint as Chief Minister, and the version of Narendra Modi I have in mind is the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

But back when Mamata Banerjee became Chief Minister of Bengal for the first time, one of the first things she did was to ask the Centre for help given West Bengal’s precarious finances. The point is not about whether it was given or not (as far as this blogpost is concerned), the point is that states routinely ask for, and sometimes get, aid from the centre. This may be because of natural disasters, or man made ones, financial ones or otherwise. The point is that the central government has the ability to ‘help’ out states if necessary. It is, of course, more complicated than that, and a fiscal union also implies the ability to raise and share taxes, but the central point is the fact there is help available, if needed.

But the ability of the European Union to do so is severely constrained, because you will need a lot of good luck to convince, for example, German voters that their taxes might be used to help the Spanish economy in its time of need. And for somewhat similar reasons, you can make more or less the same argument for the inability of the European Central Bank to chip in when necessary.

Or consider Narendra Modi’s invitation to Ratan Tata, to have his Tata Nano factory be relocated from West Bengal to Sanand in Gujarat. That’s an example of capital mobility, and again, this is much easier to achieve within a country.

And finally, Raj Thackeray, and his opposition to workers from outside Maharashtra ‘taking’ jobs within the state – that is a great way to understand what (lack of) labor mobility means.

The point is that an economic union must necessarily have these four things in place for it to be a meaningful, stable and well-functioning European Union. The idea isn’t new, of course – Robert Mundell‘s idea has been around since the late 1950’s, and there have been others who have worked on related ideas. Also read Paul Krugman on the topic.

But the point is that if a crisis strikes the EU, they have a limited range of weaponry that they can deploy.

Please read the rest of the article to get a sense of how linkages between European governments and its banks, the banks and the broader economy, and the broader economy and the European governments can both cause and exacerbate a crisis.

And as usual, the concluding paragraph for your perusal:

The euro zone is at less risk from doom loops than it was ten years ago, thanks to reforms to the banking system, the ECB’s commitment to preserve the euro and some embryonic fiscal integration. But the danger has not disappeared. And reforms to the euro zone’s architecture that would further reduce the risk have stalled⁠—in part because in 2012 the ECB boldly stepped in, easing the pressure on governments to make difficult decisions. As the ECB once again intervenes, the prospects for deep euro-zone reform look increasingly remote.

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/06/22/what-is-the-doom-loop-in-the-euro-zone