The 1920's all over again: The Greek Transfer Problem

Germany in the 1920's: The Transfer Problem
Keynes, in 1929, stated that the problem of German reparations after World War I could be reduced into two issues: the Budgetary Problem (i.e. how to extract the necessary amount from the country) and the Transfer Problem (i.e. converting the German money received into foreign currency). The fact that Germany had been borrowing abroad for domestic capital purposes temporarily solved the problem, yet the situation could not hold for ever. Thus, the only potential resolution of finding the funds to cover for the Budgetary Problem would be to increase exports by a significant amount; a feat that could only be achieved by shifting factors of production from other employments to the German export industry.

The only reasonable explanation for Keynes was that Germany had to reduce her costs of production first, as supply of labour was more than enough at the time. Using this rationale, solving the Transfer problem would mean that German gold-costs of production relative to such costs elsewhere would have to be reduced either through increased efficiency, lowering of interest rates or lowering efficiency wages. As the first two did not appear to be available for change (efficiency was high at the time and lowering interest rates, i.e. cheap money for Germany, was not an option) a reduction of the efficiency-wages in Germany was the only alternative left.

However, such a reduction in efficiency wages would make the extraction of the funds needed for reparations (i.e. the Budgetary Problem) much more challenging. In addition, lowering money-wages would be to no avail if:
i.   Output could not be exported
ii.  Demand elasticity for Germany’s goods was less than one
iii. Germany’s competitors reduced their efficiency wages pari passu
iv.  Foreign customers imposed tariffs on German goods

This lowering of money-wages would not mean that real-wages would be reduced by the same amount as home-goods prices are expected to fall. On the other hand, efficiency could also be reduced in response to the wages which could trigger an even larger decrease in money-wages and so on.

The mechanisms which would provide for such a decrease in wages were two: the fall of the German Mark’s exchange rate (which was prohibited by the Dawes scheme) or by allowing the Reichsbank to enforce deflation, which would curtail the activity of business and throw people out of employment, so that when sufficient amount of workers are out of employment they would accept a reduction in their money wages. In Keynes's own words "Whether this is politically and humanly feasible is another matter".

Greece in the 2010's
On May 2nd, 2010, the IMF and the Eurozone authorities (Troika) agreed on a bail-out loan of €110 billion. The influx of funds, which was mainly employed in bank recapitalizations and debt restructuring, came with the need to increase government revenue, while simultaneously reducing expenses so that future installments could be met. Given that Greece did not possess a national currency to devaluate (much like Germany in the 1920’s) the additional three options had to be assessed; greater efficiency, cheaper money or lowering the money-wages.

Blue line: Corporate Lending Rate. Orange line: Mortgage Lending Rate

Although interest rates decreased slightly, they remained a relatively high level compared with the rest of the Eurozone, perhaps indicative of the fact that Greece is still at risk. Issuance of sovereign bonds was not an option for the country since she had been out of the markets since April 2010, thus, no opportunity for cheap money was not available. Increased efficiency was an issue considered in the country, yet, due to over-crowding in the government sector, lay-offs were implemented, both as a measure to increase efficiency as well as a measure to decrease government spending. Thus, the only remaining alternative was a reduction in money-wages.

Reduced government spending meant reduced state stimulus in the economy; thus, the Budgetary problem had to be resolved as less available money would have to compensate for the same amount of state revenues (to meet debt repayments). The challenge was no less tempting than the one faced by Germany in the 1920’s and the necessity to create additional income to compensate for the increased installments which had to be paid in the following periods, drove the economy to the only other alternative: deflation.

Not possessing a national currency (much like Germany could not devaluate hers) meant that the nation would either be forced to borrow from abroad to repay her current installments (which was infeasible for Greece) or increase the trade balance in favour of exports. In Keynes's mind, this could only occur if money-wages were reduced; as we have seen before indicate that before, money-wages in Greece decreased, although they were much stickier than most expected.

The shift of factors of production in Greece the borrower’s price of Imports relative to Exports is consistently rising over time, which leads to decreased export prices and increased import ones. This is consistent with the Keynesian premise that factors of production need to shift from industries which focus on domestic goods to ones which focus on exports, consequently decreasing export prices as a result of lower efficiency wages.

Import over Export Prices

Conclusion
Since Greece was unable to devaluate her currency to accommodate for the flow of goods in her economy after the first bail-out, the transfer problem deteriorated the nation’s finances, which promoted a shift in the factors of production from home-goods to export-goods, albeit at a significant cost to the country’s economy: unemployment has exceeded 26%. Consequently, the Budgetary problem of extracting a significant amount of funds from a reduced amount of wages in an economy, arose; this in its turn provided the need for debt restructuring, both in the sense of reducing the debt burden as well as making debt terms more lax. 

Why should we pay attention to this? Simply because this has been largely ignored by most economists when the design of the Greek restructuring plan took place (and every other EU bail-out before or since, to be fair) and led to consequences econometric models were unable to project. In addition, since none of the countries which received a bail-out has been able to come out of it successfully yet, (although Cyprus has some hopes since new bank loan offers have already began) the matter presented here should be of extreme interest both for any future bail-outs that may be needed (Slovenia is likely candidate for example) as well as for re-examining where policy went wrong in the Eurozone. Past experiences with austerity when countries had their own sovereign currencies had nothing to do with what was (and is) asked of the bailed-out member: a depreciation of the exchange rate when there is no exchange rate to depreciate. This is what has mainly been the cause of the severe contraction of the Eurozone economy has been the inflexibility of the economy (see also here) which is a result of stickiness in the short-run and the lack of sovereign currency to depreciate. In its turn, this forced the shifting of factors of production from one sector to another while at the same time created an army of unemployed.

To paraphrase Keynes, it appears that such policies were deemed as politically and humanly feasible in the 2010's EU. Unfortunately, the costs were both miscalculated and neglected.