SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 3 2021 (IPS) – Hopes for an inclusive global economic recovery are fast fading. As rich countries have done little to ensure poor countries’ access to vaccines and fiscal resources, North-South “” will certainly widen.
Enhancing relief, recovery, transformation
While the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has rich countries’ recovery prospects upward, the United Nations (UN) notes formidable challenges, especially for developing countries, due to the pandemic.
Anis Chowdhury
The of more setbacks for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), already behind schedule before the pandemic. Grim recovery prospects have been worsened by debt distress and dramatic drops in investment and trade.
Designing appropriate relief, recovery and reforms well is necessary. For the , growth-enhancing reforms could significantly improve growth in emerging market and developing economies over the next decade.
Countries must quickly spend much more to contain the pandemic and offset adverse effects of policy responses. This is needed to protect incomes, jobs and businesses, while paying more attention to the most vulnerable. Also, the SDGs still need more financing.
Policy choices now will determine chances of a greener, more inclusive and resilient future. There have to be better synergies among short, medium and long-term policies through improved coordination.
Macroeconomic policy coordination
Although public debt is already high while tax revenue has shrunk, governments need to spend more. Central banks (CBs) must lend more to governments to create more fiscal space. Better monetary policy support for government spending should strengthen relief, recovery and reform, not enable more corporate debt and asset price bubbles.
In turn, fiscal authorities can create monetary policy space by enabling spending on nationally produced goods and services, investing in productive capabilities, enabling new jobs and occupations, and expanding social protection. Policy design should ensure that more liquidity does not generate excessive inflationary pressures or net imports.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Greater CB independence in recent decades has undermined macroeconomic policy coordination, preventing them from lending directly to governments. Keeping inflation low has become paramount, ignoring other policy goals. Supposedly for CB and monetary policy credibility, such priorities actually serve financial investors, especially speculators.
But with ‘unconventional monetary policies’ after the 2008 global financial crisis, CB lending to governments has become more acceptable. Many rich country governments have since turned to CBs for fiscal space and other finance.
With little affordable finance available from both private and official sources, some developing countries, such as , have temporarily suspended laws preventing direct borrowing from CBs. Others, e.g., the , have amended legislation to allow CBs to directly lend to governments.
Thus, how countries emerge from recessions in the short-term, and transform their economies to achieve progress in the longer term, critically depends on effective cooperation between CBs and governments.
Central banks’ developmental role
, CBs have played a developmental role, e.g., financing public investment. Even though many CB statutes are not explicit about such roles, the two oldest CBs – the Bank of England and Sweden’s Riksbank – are not prohibited from vigorously promoting policy priorities, e.g., the latter’s commitment to housing for all.
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The Bank of England has even pioneered creating specialised development institutions, e.g., the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation, the Finance Corporation for Industry, and the Bankers’ Industrial Development Company.
The US Federal Reserve Act is committed to realise “the economy’s long run potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates…in furtherance of the purposes of the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1948.”
CBs of Italy, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands have used various means to finance activities underserved by credit markets. These include lowering bank and lending for priorities such as housing, agriculture, exports, small business and underdeveloped regions.
Well before independence, the Reserve Bank of India , “it may be desirable for Central Bank credit to be made available in a larger number of ways and with less restrictions”. Hence, development objectives are explicit in many developing countries’ CB statutes.
The statutes of some CBs established in the 1970s and 1980s with IMF technical assistance also , e.g., in Bhutan, Botswana, Fiji, Maldives, Solomon Islands, Swaziland and Vanuatu.
This is consistent with IV, “each member shall endeavor to direct its economic and financial policies toward the objective of fostering orderly economic growth with reasonable price stability, with due regard to its circumstances”.
The Bangladesh CB, a financial inclusion pioneer, also adopted a in 2011 to promote green investment and sustainable agriculture. Ninety developing country CBs have since signed the to advance financial inclusion.
Supporting transformation
Borrowing to finance recovery and reform has to promote desirable changes, creating new productive capacities, , , , and .
The European Central Bank (ECB) has aligned ‘quantitative easing’ with the European Commission (EC)’s pandemic response. By indicating it would buy newly issued government bonds in the secondary market, the ECB has effectively financed government borrowing to the government.
Thus, considerable ECB purchase of government bonds has for member States’ pandemic responses. These include the EC’s , including the and its ‘’.
The Bank of Japan is also s for relief, recovery, economic growth, structural change, disaster management and global warming mitigation. It is also encouraging companies to invest in digitalisation and green technologies.
The South Korean CB has also have provided monetary support for the ‘’, including pandemic relief, recovery, digital and green investments, and employment safety nets.
China’s CB’s are also increasingly aligned with the government’s long-term strategic goals. These include supporting key sectors while preventing asset price bubbles and ‘overheating’.
Bolder actions needed
Over the last year, poorer countries have been condemned to protracted recessions and delayed recoveries. and mean that their vaccination efforts will be , if not worse.
Extended slowdowns not only threaten to become depressions, but also to further set back the modest progress achieved in recent decades. The North-South gap between rich and poor countries is certain to grow again.
Recovery prospects have been set back by poor countries’ lack of ‘fiscal space’. The IMF must help them use monetary policy much more creatively, not only to enhance fiscal space, but also to complement other policies for relief, recovery and transformation.
