What's in store for r*?

November 24, 2020

It is amazing how things we once thought impossible, or at least extremely improbable, can become commonplace. Ten-year government bond yields in most of Europe and Japan are at or below zero. And, for U.S. Treasurys, the yield has been below 1 percent since March.

A confluence of factors has come together to deliver these incredibly low interest rates. Most importantly, inflation is far lower and much more stable than it was 30 years ago. Second, monetary policy remains extremely accommodative, with policy rates stuck around zero (or below!) for the past decade in Europe and Japan, and only temporarily higher in the United States. Third, the equilibrium (or natural) real interest rate (r*)—the rate consistent in the longer run with stable inflation and full employment—has fallen by roughly 2 percentage points since 2008 and is now only 0.5% or lower.

How long will this go on? What’s in store for r*? Focusing on the United States, in this post we discuss the large post-2007 decline in r* that followed a gradual downward trend in prior decades. After considering various possible explanations, we focus on the change in U.S. saving behavior. Around 2008, there was an abrupt increase in household savings relative to wealth and income. Combined with increased foreign demand for U.S. assets, this appears to be a key culprit behind the recent fall in r*.

We doubt that this will change anytime soon….

Has the U.S. Distribution of Wealth Worsened?

August 03, 2020

Wealth inequality in the United States is obvious to everyone. The Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF) documents the glaring and persistent divide between rich and poor, confirming that ownership of financial and real assets in the United States has been highly concentrated for decades (see our earlier post). The most recent 2016 estimates suggest that the top 10% of the wealth distribution own nearly three-quarters of all marketable assets, with the top 1% owning more than half of that. And, Saez and Zucman (SZ) estimate that the U.S. distribution has been getting worse, with the top 1% share of marketable wealth rising by more than 10 full percentage points since 1989.

But, as Catherine, Miller and Sarin (CMS) recently highlight, adding in the present discounted value of Social Security benefits (net of taxes) to construct a more comprehensive measure of wealth alters these patterns. First, according to CMS’s estimates, the share of marketable wealth in total wealth has plunged by more than 18 percentage points since 1989. Second, over the past three decades, the top 1% share of total wealth has risen only modestly, while the share owned by the top 10% has declined somewhat.

In this post, we highlight the CMS results, and decompose their changes in total wealth shares into two parts: the changes in marketable and Social Security wealth shares accruing to each group, and the aggregate decline over time of marketable wealth as a share of total wealth. We show that the latter dominates the overall trend in this more comprehensive measure of inequality….

Sudden Stops: A Primer on Balance-of-Payments Crises

June 25, 2018

After years of relative calm, in recent months several emerging economies have found the cost of attracting foreign funding is going up. Faced with a halt of external financing, Argentina obtained a three-year financing deal worth $50 billion from the IMF, while funds also appear to be flowing out of Brazil, Turkey, and elsewhere. And, recent bond market turbulence in Italy suggests the possibility that political risks are triggering outflows there.

In this post, we explain balance-of-payments (BoP) crises—the sudden stops or capital flow reversals—that compel countries to restore their external balance between exports and imports or, in the case of capital flight, shift to export surpluses. In addition to describing common features of BoP crises, and characterizing sources of vulnerability that make them more likely, we examine one emerging-market example—the Asian crisis of 1997-98—and one advanced-economy episode—the crisis of the euro-area periphery from 2010 to 2012….

Banking the Masses: 2018 Edition

May 07, 2018

The two leading financial trends of our time are the integration of digital technology and the advance of financial inclusion. The latter involves both provision of access to those who have no account (the “unbanked”) and increased usage of financial services by those with a tenuous link to the formal system (the “underbanked”). A combination of swift technological change and government promotion is speeding the rise of inclusion.

Six years ago, the World Bank estimated that roughly 2.5 billion adults (15 or older) had no bank deposit, no formal credit, and no means of payment other than cash or barter. Stunningly, in its Global Findex Database 2017 published last month, the Bank now estimates that the number of unbanked adults has plummeted to 1.7 billion. Over the past six years, more than 1.2 billion adults have gained at least basic financial access through a financial institution or their mobile phone.

In addition to a range of technological progress, India’s government-led financial inclusion program has been the second key factor in the recent advance of inclusion. By our estimate, the gains in India account for more than one-half of the 515 million persons who acquired access globally between 2014 and 2017!

In the remainder of this post, we briefly describe the benefits of financial inclusion, and highlight key trends regarding access since 2011 as well as prospects for achieving the World Bank’s goal of universal financial access. We conclude with a short discussion of Africa, where the largest gains still lie ahead. Reflecting long-term demographic prospects, we emphasize that the advance of financial inclusion in Africa will matter for the global economy, not just for Africa.

What's in store for r*?

Sudden Stops: A Primer on Balance-of-Payments Crises

Banking the Masses: 2018 Edition

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