Adam Posen thinks that if Abe fails to follow through on his pledge to hike taxes, the Japanese stock market will crash:
Posen’s fear, outlined in an interview in his office last week, is that Abe reneges on a plan to raise Japan’s consumption tax to 10 percent, from the 8 percent level it was boosted to in April. If that happens, prepare for international investors to dump Japanese stocks and the yen, says the former U.K. central banker.
“If Prime Minister Abe decides to postpone, let alone cancel, he runs a real risk of crashing the stock market,” said Posen...
To Posen, delaying the tax measure would test the patience of international investors who have backed Abe’s efforts to both propel his economy from 15 years of deflation and restore fiscal order to a nation where government debt now tops 240 percent of gross domestic product.
This is interesting, because most people are saying the exact opposite. Most people are blaming the recent Japanese sales tax hike (from 5% to 8%) for the severe contraction of GDP in the second quarter.
I always thought that was a little weird. Why should a 3% tax hike crush Japanese GDP when a similar-sized tax hike in America a year earlier failed to put much of a dent in growth? Why is the Japanese economy so fragile to tax hikes? Neither Econ 101 theories of deadweight loss nor Econ 102 Keynesian theories have much insight, and the calibrated DSGE models I've seen don't predict an effect nearly so big.
OK, but now let's take Posen's totally opposite contention. Will delays in tax hikes really cause a collapse in investor confidence that crashes the Nikkei? It seems possible, certainly. After all, Japan can get rid of its debt in three ways - default, monetize, or consolidate. The more it starts to appear that consolidation is politically impossible, the more it starts to look like monetization is inevitable.
That could cause the marginal Nikkei investor (who is probably not Japanese) to bolt. But will monetization be bad for stocks? As interest rates go to zero, the present discounted value of stocks explodes. As long as inflation remains subdued, monetization is good for stocks, not bad.
So what Posen is saying is essentially that debt monetization will lead international investors to fear hyperinflation - which really does kill stocks. I'm very, very suspicious of this, because I think it's just a fact that no one really knows why or when hyperinflation happens. It's always possible that investors could get scared of hyperinflation and bolt.
But suppose Japan's debt were half of what it is. Wouldn't it still be the case that investors could get scared of monetization-induced hyperinflation and bolt at any moment? What level of debt and monetization is reassuring to investors, and what level is scary? Posen has no evidence to support his contention that Japan is near a tipping point. But does anyone have evidence? Can anyone?
I always thought that was a little weird. Why should a 3% tax hike crush Japanese GDP when a similar-sized tax hike in America a year earlier failed to put much of a dent in growth? Why is the Japanese economy so fragile to tax hikes? Neither Econ 101 theories of deadweight loss nor Econ 102 Keynesian theories have much insight, and the calibrated DSGE models I've seen don't predict an effect nearly so big.
OK, but now let's take Posen's totally opposite contention. Will delays in tax hikes really cause a collapse in investor confidence that crashes the Nikkei? It seems possible, certainly. After all, Japan can get rid of its debt in three ways - default, monetize, or consolidate. The more it starts to appear that consolidation is politically impossible, the more it starts to look like monetization is inevitable.
That could cause the marginal Nikkei investor (who is probably not Japanese) to bolt. But will monetization be bad for stocks? As interest rates go to zero, the present discounted value of stocks explodes. As long as inflation remains subdued, monetization is good for stocks, not bad.
So what Posen is saying is essentially that debt monetization will lead international investors to fear hyperinflation - which really does kill stocks. I'm very, very suspicious of this, because I think it's just a fact that no one really knows why or when hyperinflation happens. It's always possible that investors could get scared of hyperinflation and bolt.
But suppose Japan's debt were half of what it is. Wouldn't it still be the case that investors could get scared of monetization-induced hyperinflation and bolt at any moment? What level of debt and monetization is reassuring to investors, and what level is scary? Posen has no evidence to support his contention that Japan is near a tipping point. But does anyone have evidence? Can anyone?
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