“The Group of 20 nations pledged on Saturday to put growth before austerity, seeking to revive a global economy that “remains too weak” and adjusting stimulus policies with care so that recovery is not derailed by volatile financial markets.”
“Finance ministers and central bankers signed off on a communiqué that acknowledged the benefits of expansive policies in the United States and Japan but highlighted the recession in the euro zone and a slowdown in emerging markets.”
“Officials backed an action plan to boost jobs and growth, while rebalancing global demand and debt, that will be readied for a G20 leaders summit hosted by President Vladimir Putin in September.
“Sources at the meeting said Germany was less assertive than previously over commitments to reduce borrowing to follow on from a deal struck in Toronto in 2010, with the improving U.S. economy adding weight to Washington’s call to focus on growth.
With youth unemployment rates approaching 60 percent in euro zone strugglers Greece and Spain, the growth versus austerity debate has shifted – reflected in the fact that G20 finance and labor ministers held a joint session on Friday.”
“The G20 accounts for 90 percent of the world economy and two-thirds of its population – many living in the large emerging economies at greatest risk of a reversal of capital inflows that have been one of the side effects of the Fed stimulus.
‘One thing we would like to emphasize is the importance of coordination,’ said Indonesian Finance Minister Chatib Basri, cautioning that scaling back policies of quantitative easing elsewhere “immediately affects” emerging markets.”
“The International Monetary Fund warned that turbulence on global markets could deepen, while growth could be lower than expected due to stagnation in the euro zone and slowdown risks in the developing world.
‘Global economic conditions remain challenging, growth is too weak, unemployment is too high and the recovery is too fragile,’ Managing Director Christine Lagarde told reporters. ‘So more work is needed to improve this situation.'”
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Yesterday I discussed the coordinating role groups such as the G20 play in today’s globalized economy. That post focused specifically on coordinating efforts to curb corporate tax-evasion. Today’s article emphasizes that fiscal and monetary policies must also be coordinated in order to achieve sustainable human development on a global scale.
Fiscal stimulus efforts must be coordinated; if they are not, the benefits of an individual countries stimulus programs will not be fully realized. Consider a hypothetical jobs program in the U.S. If this program is enacted unilaterally, then depressed demand in export markets (ex E.U.) will cause increased production capacity in the U.S. to lead not to greater trade but surplus goods and lower prices–employment gains will not be sustained by the private sector and will likely be reversed once stimulus money runs out. However, if fiscal stimulus programs were coordinated, and both the U.S. and the E.U. increased productive capacity and income, then a basis for trade and self-sustaining growth could emerge, making fiscal stimulus a short-term “shot in the arm” (as it is intended to be) instead of a permanent program (which is not sustainable for governments and often leads to uncompetitive industries).
Monetary policy must also be coordinated. Quantitative Easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan have injected cheap money into the global economy. Seeking higher returns, this cheap money is often channeled towards emerging markets (such as the “BRICS”). One fear is that once QE policies wind down, emerging markets will experience “capital flight” as higher returns become available in more stable markets. In order to temper this inevitable effect of monetary tightening, both monetary policy coordination and “forward guidance” are needed from major central banks. Bernanke recently reasserted that the Fed will continue bond-buying until U.S. unemployment drops to 6.5% or inflation rises to 2.5%. However, this forward guidance is slightly muddled by ideological differences within the Fed, and amplified by Bernanke’s presumed exit as chairman of the Fed early in 2014. Coordinated monetary policy can provide the clarity needed to assuage markets. In a surprise move a few weeks ago, ECB head Mario Draghi “promised rates will remain ‘at present or lower levels for an extended period of time.’” Indications that the ECB and BoJ are committed to providing liquidity to global markets will make the Feds (eventual and inevitable) retreat from QE less damaging to global markets.
This G20 meeting has ushered in much welcome news, “in contrast to an ill-tempered G20 meeting in February colored by talk of currency wars.”
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About a month ago, I discussed the impacts of austerity programs on states human rights obligations. This post focused a study Spanish austerity and healthcare. The G20 is more concerned with global issues (although Spain and Greece are still a poster children for youth unemployment and the social deterioration that austerity can cause during a recession, and are therefore common examples for pro-stimulus / anti-austerity proponents).
People often consider human rights as positive or negative rights; either the government has to directly provide a good / service or prevent another party from violating human rights. Another aspect of human rights is creating an enabling environment for sustainable human development. “The right to development, which embodies the human rights principles of equality, non-discrimination, participation, transparency and accountability as well as international cooperation, can guide our responses to a series of contemporary issues and challenges. The right to development is not about charity, but enablement and empowerment. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has called on governments and all concerned…to move beyond political debate and focus on practical steps to implement the Declaration. ‘States have the duty to cooperate with each other in ensuring development and eliminating obstacles to development,’ according to the Declaration (full text here).”
One essential element of the right to development is the international recognized “right to work”. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.” This right is a particularly important aspect of the right to development, as work income provides a means of self-determination and the ability reduce dependence on welfare programs as people attempt to realize their personal goals and aspirations.
Sometimes people do not work because they are lazy, or suffer from physical or mental conditions which impede their ability to find or maintain work. However, when unemployment rates are above 20%, and youth unemployment is above 50%, this can hardly be attributed to laziness (unless you think the world’s lazy people are all collaborating and putting themselves through years of misery in order to remain lazy, but that argument is absurd hard to sell). Such high unemployment levels are due in large part to government inaction / inability to pass stimulus programs, and the negative effects of austerity programs in the face of inadequate private sector demand / personal consumption (this is not stipulation or a normative stance, but rather what textbook economics tells us).
Such high levels of unemployment represent a failure of states to uphold the universal human “right to work”, which undermines the internationally recognized “right to development”. For years now, economic policy has been dominated by politics and vested interests. It is heartening to see national labor and finance ministers finally coming together to “eliminate obstacles to development”. More concrete programs will probably hopefully be hammered out when heads of state come together in Moscow in September for the G20 leaders summit.
I hope this is not “too little too late”, and that the years since the Great Recession took hold have not lead to “lost generations” of young people who are doomed to a lifetime of anti-social, unproductive, and sometimes criminal behavior (as some people have argued). While there will inevitably be some lifetime dependents resulting from the Great Recession (as there always are from traumatic experiences, be they economic downturns, natural disasters or violent conflicts), I am optimistic that as a whole young adults and the unemployed in general are eager to get back to work once the global policy coherence needed to create those jobs is established. G20 meetings this past week represent a meaningful step in that direction.
Normative Narratives 