National debt has increased rapidly over the past few years. In 2006/7 general government debt was £577.8bn or 42.9% of GDP. In 2009/10 it was £1000.4bn or 71.3% of GDP. It is set to go higher, with government debt forecast to be around 87% of GDP in 2011. This compares with forecasts of 82% for Germany, 87% for France, 103% for the USA, 134% for Greece and 195% for Japan.
Getting the deficit and debt down has, not surprisingly, become an issue in many countries. In the UK it has become the major current pre-occupation of the Coalition government and on 20 October it is set to announce major public spending cuts as a means of achieving this.
To get a flavour of the government’s thinking and the message that ministers are putting out to the electorate, the following are quotes from the Prime Minister’s and then the Chancellor’s speeches to the Conservative Party Conference:
This year, we’re going to spend £43 billion pounds on debt interest payments alone. £43 billion – not to pay off the debt – just to stand still. Do you know what we could do with that sort of money? We could take eleven million people out of paying income tax altogether. We could take every business in the country out of corporation tax. That’s why we have acted decisively – to stop pouring so much of your hard-earned money down the drain. We are already paying £120m of interest every single day thanks to the last Labour government. (David Cameron)
It’s the borrowing that doesn’t go away as the economy grows, and we have £109bn of it. It’s like with a credit card. The longer you leave it, the worse it gets. You pay more interest. You pay interest on the interest. You pay interest on the interest on the interest. We are already paying £120m of interest every single day thanks to the last Labour government. Millions of pounds every day that goes to the foreign governments we owe so they can build the schools and hospitals for their own citizens that we aren’t able to afford for ours. How dare Labour call that protecting the poor? (George Osborne)
Let’s unpick this a bit. Who earns the interest? The answer is that it is paid to holders of government debt in the form of government bonds (gilts), national savings certificates, premium bonds, etc. In other words it is paid to savers, whether individuals or pension funds or companies.
Does it all go abroad? In fact 29% of gilts are held abroad. The rest are held by British residents. Thus some 70% of the interest rate paid on government debt goes to British residents and supports pensions and savers. It can thus be seen as a transfer from taxpayers to savers.
Because of the record low interest rates many pensioners who rely on savings interest have seen their incomes fall dramatically. Others draw income from a ‘self-invested personal pension’. The amount that can be drawn each year is based on tables according to a person’s age and the current 15-year Treasury gilt yield (currently 3.45%). Thus the lower the rate of interest, and the less the yield, the less that can be drawn.
So who are the gainers and losers from high general government debt and attempts to get it down? Read the following articles and look at the data and then try answering the questions.
Articles
Britons have donated £7m to help pay off the national debt (but that’s a drop in the ocean) Mail Online, Daniel Martin (9/10/10)
A trillion and rising: Britain’s £1,000,000,000,000 debt means it is now paying as much in interest as it does for defence Mail Online, Hugo Duncan (1/10/10)
Spending cuts “not enough”, say small firms Telegraph, James Hurley (8/10/10)
UK public finances post record August deficit Guardian, Julia Kollewe (21/9/10)
Another paradox of thrift The Economist, Buttonwood (16/9/10)
Data
The gilt market UK Debt Management Office
Gilt market data UK Debt Management Office
Overseas gilt holdings UK Debt Management Office
Public sector: current position ONS (30/9/10)
Public sector finances ONS Statistical Bulletin (21/9/10)
Government deficit and debt under the Maastricht Treaty ONS Statistical Bulletin (30/9/10)
Contributions to the government deficit and debt ONS Statistical Bulletin (31/3/10)
Questions
- Explain the difference between central government, general government and public-sector deficits and debt.
- Who loses from a rising public-sector debt? Who gains?
- Conduct an international comparison of (a) the level of the government deficit and debt and (b) their rate of growth over the past few years.
- What is meant by the ‘yield’ on a particular gilt?
- If gilt yields fall, does this mean that the government pays less on existing gilts? Is it likely to pay less on new gilt issues? Explain.
- How do cuts affect the distribution between savers and borrowers?
This week, we have seen some major potential changes in the UK’s welfare state. One key change involves child benefit. (see Who won’t benefit from child benefit?) However, a more recent development stems from a problem that has built up over a number of years and is not just peculiar to the UK: Pensions.
As technology advances and medical procedures improve, there has been a general increase in life expectancy for both men and women across the world. People are living for longer and longer and hence pensioners can be in retirement for over 30 years. This is over double the retirement time we used to see decades ago. Therefore, pensioners are eligible to receive their state pension or their private pension for much longer and hence the cost is becoming unsustainable.
Lord Hutton has led a review into public sector pension schemes and has concluded that public sector workers should be paying higher contributions. Lord Hutton has said that employees should be working for longer and hence retiring later. This would increase their contributions throughout their lives and also reduce the time period over which they receive a pension, hence cutting costs. There was also a recommendation that ‘final-salary pension schemes should be scrapped and changed to so-called ‘career-average’ schemes. The final-salary scheme benefits high earners and not those who make gradual progression up the career ladder. This possible change should certainly reduce the pension you are eligible to receive and hence should positively affect the sustainability of pension provision in the UK.
However, public sector workers who may face higher contributions and have already, in some cases, faced pay cuts or pay freezes, are unsurprisingly upset. They argue that accepting work in the public sector means accepting a lower wage than they could achieve in the private sector. The compensation, they argue, is the reward of a higher pension, which could be about to change. However, the independent review has found that the contributions made by the public sector do not reflect the true cost of the benefit they receive in their pension. This is likely to be a contentious issue for some time to come. Below are some articles considering this, but keep a look out for further developments.
Articles
Public sector pensions report explained BBC News (7/10/10)
Public sector pensions review: Q&A Telegraph (9/10/10)
Pensions reforms to focus on high earners Independent, Simon Read (9/10/10)
Why Lord Hutton could make public pensions bills bigger … not smaller Financial News, Mark Cobley and William Hutchings (8/10/10)
Lord Hutton: I busted the myth that public sector pensions are gold-plated Telegraph, Lord Hutton (8/10/10)
Key points of UK public sector pension review Reuters (8/10/10)
Public pensions review recommends higher contributions BBC News (7/10/10)
Public sector workers paying ‘less tax’ due to generous pension rules Telegraph, Myra Butterworth (8/10/10)
Asda closes final salary pension scheme Telegraph, Jamie Dunkley (9/10/10)
Hutton report: he’s no friend of gold-plated pensioners Guardian, Patrick Collinson (9/10/10)
Asda to close final salary pension scheme BBC News (8/10/10)
Lord Hutton: what the pension revolution means for public servants Telegraph, Emma Simon (8/10/10)
Report
Independent Public Service Pensions Commission: Interim Report Pensions Commission, Lord Hutton October 2010
Questions
- What is the purpose of a pension? Think about the idea of redistribution.
- Why should average-career pension schemes be less costly than final-salary pension schemes? Which is the most equitable arrangement?
- What are the key problems that have led to the pensions problem in the UK?
- What are the main recommendations of the independent pension review?
- How is opportunity cost relevant to problem of pensions provision?
- Is it fair that public sector workers should pay higher contributions towards their pensions?
- The BBC News article, Public sector review recommends higher contributions states that: “The recent decision to uprate pensions in line with the consumer prices index (CPI) rather than the retail prices index (RPI) has shaved 15% from the cost of the schemes.” Explain why this is the case?
If you are an Irish resident, you may be feeling very worried! As Irish debt levels reach new heights, the bill will once again fall on the tax payer. Irish government borrowing is almost 12% of GDP, but with two key banks requiring a bail out, government borrowing is expected to treble this figure to some 32% of GDP. The Anglo-Irish bank requires approximately £30 billion and Allied Irish also requires more cash. The Irish Finance Minister said:
‘The state has to downsize these institutions to prevent them becoming a systemic threat to the state itself.’
The Irish have already faced a round of austerity cuts and with the latest banking catastrophe, the next round is about to start. There are concerns that the Irish economy could move into a downward spiral, with more money being removed from the economy causing more people to lose their jobs, which will weaken public finances further and mean that more borrowing will then be required. It is hardly surprising to find a pessimistic mood on the streets of Ireland.
However, with a new interdependent world, this crisis will not only be felt by Ireland. The UK exports a large amount to Ireland – more than to Spain or Italy. With Irish tax-payers facing higher burdens and unemployment still relatively high, UK exporters may feel the squeeze. Other countries on the periphery of Europe, such as Portugal, Greece and even Spain are also feeling the pressure. There are concerns of a ‘two-speed Europe’. Below are some articles about the Irish crisis. Do a search and see if you can find any information on the problems in Greece, Spain or Portugal.
Ireland: a problem soon to be shared BBC News blogs, Stephanomics, Stephanie Flanders (30/9/10)
European recovery hope grows despite Ireland’s swelling deficit Guardian, Richard Wachman (30/9/10)
Ireland bank rescue spurs global debt concerns The World Today (ABC News), Peter Ryan (30/10/10)
Irish debt yields in new record despite better job data BBC News (28/9/10)
Euro Govt-bonds fall after overdone rally on Ireland, Spain Reuters (30/9/10)
Ireland’s love affair with masochism Telegraph, Jeremy Warner (30/9/10)
EU austerity drive country by country BBC News (30/9/10)
Anglo-Irish was ‘systemic threat’ BBC News (30/9/10)
Questions
- What do we mean by government borrowing?
- With such high levels of government debt, what would you expect to happen to interest rates on government debt? Explain your answer.
- When deciding whether or not to bail out the banks, what process could a government use?
- The Irish Finance Minister talks about the institutions becoming a ‘systemic threat’. What does he mean by this?
- Why might the UK economy suffer from the problems in Ireland?
- To what extent do you agree that there is a two-speed Europe, with the core economies, such as France and Germany making good economic progress, but the peripheral economies still suffering from the effects of recession?
- How might the situation in Ireland affect other members of Europe? Will there be an impact on the euro exchange rate?
The growth in money supply is slowing. This is not surprising, given that the programme of quantitative easing, whereby the Bank of England injected an extra £200bn of (narrow) money into the banking system between March 2009 and February 2010, has come to an end.
Should we be worried about this? Has sufficient money been injected into the economy to sustain the recovery, especially as fiscal policy is about to be radically tightened (see the BBC’s Spending Review section of its website)? One person who thinks that the Bank of England should do more is Adam Posen, an external member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee. In a speech on 28 September 2010, he argued that the UK was in danger of slipping into Japanese-style sluggish growth that could last many years. The reason is that capacity would be lost unless aggregate demand is increased sufficiently to bring the UK back up towards the potential level of output. Firms are unlikely to want to retain unused plant and equipment and underutilised skilled labour for very long. If they do start ‘disinvesting’ in this way, potential output will fall.
What, according to Adam Posen is the answer? With fiscal policy being tightened and with Bank rate as low as it can go, the only option is to increase money supply. But with CPI inflation at 3.1%, considerably above the target 2%, is there a danger that increasing the money supply will cause inflation to rise further? Not according to Posen, who sees inflation falling over the medium term.
Not surprisingly other economists and commentators disagree – including some of his colleagues on the MPC. The following articles look at the arguments on both sides. You will also find below a link to the speech and to money supply data. There is also a link to the latest Bank of England inflation and GDP forecasts.
Articles
Posen calls for QE to be resumed Financial Times, Chris Giles (28/9/10)
Weak lending data fuel debate on QE Financial Times, Norma Cohen (29/9/10)
Bank of England’s Adam Posen calls for more quantitative easing Telegraph, Philip Aldrick and Emma Rowley (29/9/10)
Posen pleads for new stimulus to save economy and democracy Independent, Sean O’Grady (29/9/10)
Bring back the usury laws Independent, Hamish McRae (29/9/10)
Rocking the boat on the MPC BBC News blogs, Stephanomics, Stephanie Flanders (28/9/10)
A Response to Adam Posen The Source, Alen Mattich (28/9/10)
Adam Posen is posing the Bank of England a tricky question Guardian, Nils Pratley (28/9/10)
UK economy: optimists vs. pessimists FT blogs, Chris Giles (29/9/10)
What should the Bank of England do next? BBC Today Programme, Stephanie Flanders and John Redwood (1/10/10)
Interest rates will rise, predicts former Bank of England deputy governor Guardian, Dan Milmo (4/10/10)
UK interest rates on hold at record low of 0.5% BBC News (7/10/10)
Speech
The Case for Doing More Speech to the Hull and Humber Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Shipping, Adam Posen (28/9/10)
Data
Money supply data
Money and Lending (Statistical Interactive Database) Bank of England
Bank of England Inflation and GDP forecasts
Inflation and GDP forecasts (Inflation Report) Bank of England
Questions
- Summarise Adam Posen’s arguments for a further round of quantitative easing.
- How may changes in aggregate demand affect a country’s potential (as well as actual) output?
- What are the similarities and differences between the UK now and Japan over the past two decades?
- Describe what has been happening to the various components of money supply over the past few months.
- What might suggest that the Bank of England was wrong in believing that the trend rate of growth was about 2.75%?
- What are the moral arguments about personal and state borrowing? Should we begin the ‘long retreat from the never-never society’?
- Analyse the arguments against a further round of quantitative easing.
One of the structural problems facing the UK economy is that people have been borrowing too much and saving too little. As a result, vast numbers of people have been living on credit and accumulating large debts, and many people have little in the way of savings when they retire.
So should the government or Bank of England be encouraging people to save? Not according to Charles Bean, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England – at least not in the short term. While acknowledging that people should be saving more over the long term, he argues that the main purpose of the historically low Bank Rate since the beginning of 2009 has been to encourage people to spend, thereby boosting the economy. In other words, if the purpose of a loose monetary policy is to increase aggregate demand and stimulate the economy, then what is needed is increased consumption and reduced saving, not increased saving.
In the following webcast, Charles Bean gives his views about interest rates and counters the criticism that savers are being pid too little interest. He argues that for many the solution is to start drawing on some of their capital – not a solution that most savers find very appealing!
Webcast
Bank of England: savers should eat into cash Channel 4 News, Faisal Islam (27/9/10)
Articles
Savers told to stop moaning and start spending Telegraph, Robert Winnett and Myra Butterworth (28/9/10)
Bean Says Bank of England Trying to Get Reasonable Economic Activity Level Bloomberg, Scott Hamilton and Gonzalo Vina (27/9/10)
Spend, spend, spend, demands Bank of England deputy governor Investment & Business News , Tom Harris (28/9/10)
Data
International saving data (see Table 23) Economic Outlook, OECD
AMECO on line (see tables in section 15.3) AMECO, Economic and Financial Affairs (European Commission)
Economic and Labour Market Review (see Table 1.07) National Statistics
Questions
- What is meant by the ‘paradox of thrift’?
- Reconcile the argument that it is in the long-term interests of the UK economy for people to save more with the Bank of England’s current intention that people should save less?
- Is there a parallel argument about fiscal policy and government spending (see the news item The ‘paradox of cuts’?)
- What are the determinants of saving?
- Look at the data links above and compare the UK’s saving rate with that of other countries.
- What has happened to the UK saving rate over the past four years? Attempt an explanation of this.