Eric Dor, Director of Economic Studies at IESEG School of Management, Paris, pinged me with his latest post: Financial Fragmentation of the Euro Area is the Main Challenge for the ECB.
This is a guest post, but an incomplete one. You can download the full report at the above link. What follows is from Eric Dor.
Diverging Patterns of the Flows of Funds Between the Center and the Periphery of the Euro Area
Since the start of the financial crisis, funds have had a tendency to migrate from peripheral countries to center countries. These financial flows have been caused by various factors, including a general distrust of the banking systems of peripheral countries or the famous redenomination risk.
In creditor countries, there is also a fear that, in the case of a euro breakup, the central banks of the leaving countries would default on the Target 2 liabilities that are denominated in euros. As a consequence the ECB would incur huge losses that would be imputed to the remaining national central banks. The president of the ECB has indeed officially stated that “If a country were to leave the Eurosystem, its national central bank’s claims on or liabilities to the ECB would need to be settled in full”. But the national central banks of leaving countries would surely lack the necessary reserves in euros to settle their liabilities to the ECB. There is a debate about the impact of the resulting losses on the functioning of the NCBs of the Eurosystem. It must indeed be pointed out that the loss absorbtion capacity of these national central banks is very big.
The banks of the periphery and those of the center of the euro area widely differ in their funding needs and excess liquidities. The national banking systems having huge excess liquidities, and paying the most part of the negative interest rate penalty, are different form the national banking systems massively borrowing from their national central banks.
The banks located in countries of the center of the euro area already have abundant liquidities, without having to borrow much additional liquidities from their national central bank. Banks located in France and Germany own 61% of the liquidities deposited at the Eurosystem, on the current accounts and the deposit facility. But they only benefit from 28% of the outstanding LTRO and TLTRO loans granted by the Eurosystem to banks.
On the contrary, banks located in the periphery of the euro area have a very low level of liquidities deposited with their national central banks, but massively borrow from them. Banks located in Spain and Italy only own 9% % of the liquidities deposited at the Eurosystem, on the current accounts and the deposit facility. But they benefit from 56% of the outstanding LTRO and TLTRO loans granted by the Eurosystem to banks.
LTRO and TLTRO Loans
[Mish comment: LTRO = Long-Term Refinancing Operations]
[TLTRO = Targeted Long-Term Refinancing Operations]
[Essentially these are subsidized loans on the ECB’s belief they would stimulate bank lending.]
[Rumors have circulated the ECB will run out of bonds to but but ECB president Mario Draghi says “don’t worry”.]
The new system thus essentially benefits to the banks of the periphery of the euro area, where exces liquidities of banks are low. In the countries of the center of the euro area, where liquidities are abundant, the reduction of the cost is relatively small.
It must also be pointed out that the reduction of the direct cost will quickly be eroded by the consequences of the relaunch of the QE. Indeed the net purchases of assets by the Eurosytem will mechanically increase the amount of liquidities deposited by banks on their current accounts with the national central banks. It will thus increase the deposited liquidities that will be taxed by the negative interest rate.
Non-Performing Loans
The banks of the peripheral countries of the euro are remain excessively loaded with bad quality loans, even if they are decreasing. The banking sector of the euro area remains fragmented. [emphasis mine].
Flow of New Loans
It is also striking to observe that, since the start of the recovery in the euro area, bank lows have strongly grown in France and Germany, but remain depressed or are even decreasing in Spain and Italy, despite several years of extreme monetary policy accommodation. [emphasis mine]
It is thus logical than in the countries of the center of the euro area, where bank loans are dynamic, many people question the usefulness of negative rates and a new launch of the QE. It also normal that, in view of the poor result of the ultra- accommodative monetary policies in the periphery, some critics also doubt that such a policy is the right way to address the structural problems of these countries.
Domestic Sovereign Exposure
Most countries of the euro area banks remain very exposed to the public debt of their country. In percentage of their equity, this exposure however varies widely.
It is worrying that this exposure is extremely high for banks located in Italy, the debt of which is the riskiest in the euro area. In Italy, a Greek style restructuring of the debt would fully wipe out CET1 [common equity tier 1] capital of the domestic banks.
Inflation Heterogeneity
Another feature of the fragmentation of the euro area is the extreme geographical heterogeneity of the inflation rate, based on the HICP. On average over 12 months, it ranges from 2.9% in Latvia to 0.5% in Portugal.
Even the efficiency of monetary policy is threatened by this heterogeneity. The problem is that policy interest rates are the same for the whole euro area. To the extent that there are similar divergences between the expected inflation rates, a same [sane?] nominal policy interest rate implies very different real interest rates in the different countries.
Real Interest Rates
The common policy implies higher real interest rates in the periphery than in the center of the euro area, which is exactly the contrary of what should be achieved.
It is a big problem for the transmission of the monetary policy of the ECB.
Real Disposable Income Divergence
Real disposable income per capita remains depressed, and much lower than before the financial crisis, in Italy and Spain. On the contrary it has risen in Germany and France. It is thus clear that the degree of monetary policy accommodation that is necessary to support real activity widely differs between the euro area countries. It can be confirmed by looking at the labour market.
Unemployment Divergence (Under Age 25)
While the unemployment rate is very low in countries like germany or the Netherlands, it remains very high in many peripheral countries, specially Italy. It is also very high in Spain and Greece. The most striking divergence is related to the unemployment rate of the young workers.
Mish Comments
Thanks to Eric Dor for another excellent article.
Fundamental Flaws of the Eurozone
I have comment on much of this before.
- I sarcastically labeled interest rate policy as “One Size Fits Germany”. Policy that is appropriate for Germany is not appropriate for Italy, Spain, and Greece. Yet, here we are.
- Target2 policy is another fundamental flaw of the Eurozone. How can Italy pay back 444 billion euros to creditors, primarily Germany? Spain owes over 400 billion. Germany is owed nearly a 900 billion euros.
- Agricultural policy centers around saving the French farm to the detriment of literally everyone else.
- Work rules vary widely. Italy and Greece are basket cases. So is France, just arguably no as bad.
- Tax policy varies.
- The EU leaders want a European army. Germany does not want to budget for it.
Social Political Poison
On September 23, I noted Negative Interest Rates are Social Political Poison.
To be more precise Anne Kunz and Holger Zschäpitz co-authored an excellent article for Welt (in German) called the Interest Rate Business Model is Dead.
Dor’s charts support that view.
Draghi Open to MMT and a People’s QE
On September 24 I noted Draghi Open to MMT and a People’s QE.
Despite being against the Maastricht Treaty on which the Eurozone was founded, Dragihi want to investigate MMT.
What’s really going on?
I addressed her question in What the Hell is the ECB Doing?
There are only two answers. One of them is very unsettling.
- Ignorance
- On Purpose
How is it that Draghi cannot see the damage negative interest rates do to German banks?
Both Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank have complained about negative interest rates.
And why can’t Draghi see that negative rates helped neither the Eurozone, nor Japan?
Alternatively, Draghi can see that negative rates hurt but he either doesn’t care or actually wants that outcome.
Counterproductive Policy
On September 10, Eric Dor, Director of Economic Studies at the IESEG School of Management in Paris emailed an article with some interesting charts regarding the Counterproductive Interest Rate Policy of the ECB.
I discussed Dor’s article in Questioning Lagarde as Gross Interest Income in Germany Heads Towards Zero
Email from Lacy Hunt
Shortly after posting Dor’s take, Lacy Hunt at Hoisington Management, pinged me with these comments.
“Dor’s article is outstanding. This is consistent with the great theoretical economics of the late Stanford economist Ronald McKinnon who argued that even before interest rates fall below zero, the counterproductive feedback loops outweigh the benefits of the lower rates even if the interest rates are lower in real as well as nominal terms. If you are not familiar with McKinnon’s economics, I strongly urge you to do so.”
DiMartino asks “Can someone, ANYONE, please raise your hand …“
Before answering, please ponder a different question: What better way can there possibly be to get Germany to commingle debts and bail out Italy than to destroy German banks, putting the bailout on the backs of German citizens?
We have come around to the same spot with the same question but with more supporting charts from Dor.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
A reset of the Euro could be the basis of closer integration.
Gold would help the individual countries and might explain some of the recent comments and activities related to gold in the EU.
If not a reset then a split. Hard Euro (north) and Soft Euro (south).
Can anyone disprove that the Germans will be the most financially repressed population in the EU post-Brexit. Even before.
They don’t care or perhaps just don’t realise.
So, will they understand if their banks are crushed for the “common good” of total unity?
To create a “standard” EU a massive redistribution is needed or a break it and rebuild. No one in the north will volunteer. Underhanded techniques will be used to achieve the goal.
Draghi says not to worry about the ECB running out of bonds to buy for two reasons: A) it is Christine Legarde’s problem now, and B) the ECB can and probably will just force the banks to sell the central bank some of their bond holdings, with a generous hike to the prices of course.
Or they can do what the BOJ did, start leaving bags of money in restrooms around the country.
I want to also remind you all that Argentina votes on Sunday and the odds are about 90:1 that the challengers, the Fernandez’s win. Fernandez today is hinting at a 20% bond haircut right from the start, but of course just the speculation that there will be a hefty haircut is enough to cause a bond route, sell at any price. The peso just hit 60 to the buck again and inflation is over 55%.
People are saying this time it is different, the IMF will not be able to rescue as Legarde did, it could be more or less a permanent destruction of the peso and Argentine bond market. Time to short the Merval? I don’t know, it is up 1,500 points today in just a couple hours.
Anyone else suspect Lagarde jumped before it became apparent she was none too proficient?
Look what they did to Greece by their own admission after the fact, then Argentina. All on Lagardes guard.
Add to that the court case against her during the time.
A ruddy liability imho.
“A ruddy liability imho.” Perefect for the ECB, they know all about liabilities.
Silo thinking is very bad. Eu finances are in a mess. Agreed. US finances are in a mess, Japan’s finances are in a mess and god knows what is happening in China. One of our colleagues on this site made a very perceptive comment. He said that you get what you measure. Two examples: according to the UK government we have a current account surplus with the US. According to the US government the situation is the exact reverse. Secondly youth unemployment. In France anybody who is aged 16+ but is a student is counted as unemployed. If you use the UK method of counting the unemployed then youth unemployment in the UK and France is on a par. No two countries measure the same thing in the same way. We are therefore continually comparing apples with oranges and therefore nobody knows what the true state of affairs is. All we do know is that it is a mess everywhere you look but we don’t have accurate measurement to enable anyone to know what should be done to ameliorate the situation. We are like blind men in a dense fog. I’m sure that what I’m going to suggest will infuriate a lot of you, not least because functionaries like me would have a field day, all governments must agree to measure their economies using the same set of rules and methods. Until we have an accurate idea of what is happening then nothing improves and all policies will just be a stab in the dark and a triumph of hope over expectation.
…Europe would ve been far better off without the EU, without the eurozone; each country its own currency, healthy sustainable economic competition instead of a insane, ECB created Ponzi scheme which at one point will fall apart and create a mind boggling havoc with dramatic social economic consequences, in fact the demise has already started, we just don t realize it yet with the ECB kicking the cans a bit further down the posh, dead end avenue…..
The banks in America seem no longer to trust each other hence the REPO problems. Is the American economy less of a ponzi scheme? I’m not trying to score points in the brexit argument. I’m pointing out that all economies are in a right royal tizzie and no-one knows what to do because they have no real idea of what is happening.
American economics and financial condition are actually far more sound than the socialist paradise of made up and confusing statistics in the EU, but, we are being dragged into your absurd rates and economics because of the consequences is we don’t allow that to happen, it is in effect a currency war. The Euro would be worth about 65 cents if the US was not waging it’s own battle to keep the dollar from rising through the roof. When I lived there in 2017 it had got as low as $1.04 to the euro, that made US goods too expensive and the Fed went to war with the ECB and it’s print till you die policy. Unfortunately the people on both continents are getting killed by inflation that does not exist because all the printing is sterilized away from Main Street and Hauptstraße.
If I have it right the repo issue doesn’t have to be down to a US bank.
Who is counted as unemployed has been gamed by all governments repeatedly since the early seventies. It is not just mutual comparison, but also historical comparisons that say very little (same applies to inflation and measures of public debt). For unemployment you’re better off looking at full time employment of 25-55 year olds to compare.
Agreed, and your point on in inflation and public debt is well made. But it also extends to international trade, accounting etc…etc… All I am saying is that until Governments measure the same thing in the same way we’re in cloud cuckoo land. All our economies are in the same pile of crap.
They daren’t yet. Imagine the stink when the disparities in welfare and retirement are laid bare. If they try to equalise there will be chaos. Some bitching as they retire later on less, some on how much more they are labouring and paying taxes than others.
There is a game plan to bring it all into line but expect stress on the way and the best laid plans oft go astray.
Data can be ammunition in hands wanting a weapon. – AfD.
Thank you for being on point. You are quite right about the problems that a uniform measurement system would throw up, but wouldn’t it be better for the electorates to understand what jiggery-pokery their governments are up to? On your point about REPO. There is a good article on Investment Dynamic Research ( I got there via jesse’s cafe americain ) and Woolf Street as well as Mish’s excellent posts here. What I get from them is that nobody
understands what is happening but they all agree it is extremely fishy.
Have heard DB and JPM both mentioned. I have no knowledge on that score but DB in a parlous state so no surprise if there were at the heart of an overnight liquidity issue.
What is the problem if you are offering government scrip as security? Why do rates spike?
That’s because they feed us data on the repos in quantities but are hiding who it was paid to, I am sure the information is out there but you have to dig pretty deep to find it. I know I have looked because I want to know which banks nobody wants to be counterparty to. The problem is not that there is not enough cash/debt to swap around, clearly there is both since GDP has not kept up with money.debt creation, but it is a matter of risk that is stopping these banks from overnight lending to each other. Remember when the excuse in the states was that there was a year and quarter end tax bill due so the banks/corporations needed their cash for that and were not participating in the repo market? That was September and now October nearly done yet the problem is now worse than ever. So much for the lame excuses the Fed gave 6 weeks ago for interventions.
Uh, wait! I thought a central government such as the EU is in Europe was supposed to be standardizing social, financial, economic, and metrics of other areas of statistics? Once again I have to ask, what good is the EU if it is not even doing this much? It would be as if Alabama claimed one value for something and Kansas claimed another, while Illinois just made something up entirely out of whole cloth.
Look, what I’m saying has nothing to do with Brexit. I am saying that nobody knows what is happening because you can’t trust what any government says. I thought people would object because what I am advocating means that each government would have to cede sovereignty, ie the ability game their own statistics, so that the picture becomes clearer.
I’m pretty sure the EU can take the data and draw a standardised view. If they can’t then the Euro has been run blind and no wonder it’s a basket case.
Given the importance of the Euro its shocking if they haven’t had the ability to standardise data each CB and economy delivers to them. A terrible indictment.
Agreed, the problem is that no two countries collate the stats in the same way therefore they are comparing apples and oranges and come up with an apprange.
“All we do know is that it is a mess everywhere you look but we don’t have accurate measurement to enable anyone to know what should be done to ameliorate the situation. “
“We” don’t have accurate measures, because neither can economically meaningful “accurate measures” exist even in theory, nor does there exist any mythical creature named “We.”
Rational actors always; and individually as there, again, exists no rational “we” and only rational actors make decisions; reorient to take personal advantage of any situation. Including positioning themselves to profit from any policy action which attempts to achieve a measure of something, which looked good based on all previous data. Until this profiteering no longer allows the previously good looking measure, to mean anything good anymore.
It’s a fully fundamental fallacy of logic and metaeconomics, to assume that just because a sufficient body of empirical measurements of previous states allows natural sciences to, with reasonable certainty, make predictions about the future in fields dealing with non rational entities; the same holds true in social sciences, where the entities under study are all rational self optimizers.
Enlightened self interest might be a better way of living than your Gecko outlook. Your attitude would have us back to creating fire by rubbing two flint stones together.
Being dead wrong, and logically obviously so, can never be a “better way” of anything, than not being so.
No matter how much better it may have made you and Dear Leader feel if people were simply inert pawns who could be moved around at the whims of five year planners, inert pawns aren’t evolutionarily sustainable. Only rational beings are.
And rational beings press every advantage their environment affords them. Those who didn’t, are no longer with us.
Hence, rational self optimizers are all any aspiring “we” have to work with.
People are not rational.
I’m all ears waiting for an evolutionary calculus, and definition of rational, which results in the survival of the irrational over the rational…..
Luckily, there’s so much solidarity in the union, that Germany is building factories in Italy, Spain and Portugal to combate youth-unemployment. That’s incredible, isn’t it? Rather than importing millions of migrants, they show the true strengths of the EU and everyone lived merrily ever after.
Nice sarcasm, but so true. Exporting industries to the South would hardly help; they lack qualifications nurtured through apprenticeship programs. In addition, the Latins, in fact the whole South, never developed the notion of community, and shared responsibility. Germiny is just destroying the best thing they had.
I mentioned the plans for a European Army a few times in my rants about the EU. Why now? Why not 20 years ago? Could it possibly be to enforce law&order in the event of a planned event like, say, the inevitable collapse of this ponzischeme? Of course not, Harry….you idiot, you conspiracytheorist. What also strikes me is that Draghi was allowed so much power. 8 years of sowing financial terrorism and he’s hailed as some kind of hero. And now we have Lagarde, which means we won’t see any kind of normalization of rates or tightening for many years. Of course, this was by design and that’s why Brexit has been made an example for anyone who dares to leave. But are you sure the Germans will just pay up in case of a nationwide destruction of banks?
“But are you sure the Germans will just pay up in case of a nationwide destruction of banks?”
Sure! They paid up after WWI didn’t they? No problems there, right?
Sarcasm aside, the recoil of the European citizenry after the SHTF is what politicians should be contemplating now.
Please note recent comments about how their working on behalf of the citizens has been hindered by the energy and time wasted on Brexit.
Blaming Brexit for 12+ years of creaming the gravy train and doing little for the ordinary citizens except issuing more rules.
You highlighted another deficit in EU: the lack of brainpower and will. Why is the head of ECB allowed to rein unchecked for 8 (I believe Draghi went for 10) years, and not a peep of opposition. No matter what BoJo is, he doesn’t display this sheepish European attitude.
To say the Euro-zone banking system deception is continuing understates the size of the fraud occurring before our eyes. In many ways, Draghi’s farce has been allowed to continue only because other central banks and financial institutions fear that shining a spotlight upon it would undermine world currency markets. The article below highlights several reasons the euro is doomed to slip in value.
I have often wondered whether each person could have their own floating rate currency, so that they could become more competitive say if they werent able to find a job. It wouldnt work when I think about it, but it is a good thought experiment for considering how to deal with value differentials.
I also wonder what happens if you take away floating rates from between nations. Now floating rates do a great job of dealing with imbalances by adjusting price levels. Then what happens if you do away with that balancing mechanism as they have done in the EU? It looks to me as if the Euro is a dangerous thought experiment taken too far, imbalances are to be found everywhere and the result on the real economies of these countries is huge.
We have Germany labouring under the impression that it has all of this money in the bank, but it is actually owed to them by someone who cannot pay. If you were auditing those German banks honestly, you would come to the conclusion that they would have to be closed down.
How does a single nation deal with the problem of not having internal floating rates to deal with value discrepancies? There are two ways. Either the state redistributes directly from A to B, or you have to let prices be different in different locations. There is admittedly, some price differences across the EZ, but next to nothing in terms of redistribution. This is why politicians have been calling for a EZ budget. But what does that lead to? None other than a EU superstate.
Those are the 2 ways out of this ever growing mess. Financial collapse in the EZ and a return to sovereign currencies, or a new EU superstate. I think that the latter solution was the intended plan all along.
I think you nailed it.
Personally I don’t believe in EU superstate. There is no support on the ground level and that will open up the other option if ever tried…
Hey man, the (silent for now) majority does not want this union. And eventually, this will all be looked back on as a failed experiment. It’s just terrible that our generation has to pay for it.
No support at the ground level, eh? Well, have you tried diluting the population with immigrants, bribing said immigrants for their votes with generous subsidies, and browbeating the natives with a repetitive “diversity is our strength!” motto?
I follow quite closely the news from Germany and they are baffling. On the other hand Germany is supposed to be the richest country in the EU and at the same time schools are crumbling, roads are not maintained and bridges are just about to collapse. A very good question is that where is all the money going? Is it, that virtual currency is not for the real world?
Same thing here in Finland. No money to keep up the infrastructure and people on the street level are not well off.
I start to think that the whole Euro and fractional money is just a huge ponzi scheme.
There is nothing on the scale of infrastructure problems that compare with the PG &E debacle in California. One of the main arguments in the last GE in Germany was what to do with their €36b government surplus. The SPD wanted to spend it on infrastructure the CDU/CSU didn’t.
Let the third-worlders actually make things. We have financialization!
I was in Germany for two weeks and during my travels I did not see one pot hole. I am from MI, we have the worst roads in the US so I was keenly observant of the road conditions there.
Yes my comments were correct, not the chart – The ECB posts its charts in billions. Not sure why Dor changed the scale.
Thanks
Sorry to be pedantic about a cracking article. The figures in the initial Target2 Table look very high. Surely they should be “millions” of Euros not “billions”.