IMF blogger puzzled by Central Europe and Baltic experience in crisis

By Zdenek Kudrna

Ajai Chopra, Deputy Director of the IMF’s European Department, is puzzled by the different performance of Central European 3 (CE3 - Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary) and Baltic 3 (B3 - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) in the current crisis. He provides an elegant macroeconomic analysis and contrasts their experience to that of the Asian Crisis a decade ago. However, his analysis fails to note important differences in CE3 and B3 industrial structures that influence the sustainability of their respective economic models throughout the crisis and subsequent recovery. Over the last two decades, the CE3 economies developed traditional economic model based on manufacturing that makes them less vulnerable to financial crisis then is the service-led model of the B3.


Chopra finds that CE3 avoided the much greater currency collapses witnessed in East Asia by ‘luck’ stemming from:

• First, in contrast to the soft pegs in Asia, the CE3 currencies were floating.
• Second, the CE3 economies never suffered a full “sudden stop” of capital inflows as in Asia. Wholesale funding markets dried up, but western European parent banks maintained credit lines to their central European subsidiaries. In addition, bank supervision and capital levels in emerging Europe have been better than in Asia in the 1990s, helping limit financial sector strains.
• Third, the task for external financial assistance was therefore mostly limited to replacing temporarily impaired wholesale funding markets.
• And fourth, EU membership may have instilled confidence in the region’s long-term stability and catch-up potential due to an accelerated convergence process.

He then turns attention to the question why Baltics 3 have not been similarly ‘lucky’ and finds the key difference in:

• Hard currency pegs and expectations of early euro entry had helped attract large capital inflows, but these often fed real estate bubbles, caused heavy exchange rate overvaluations, and fostered a substantially larger accumulation of foreign-currency denominated private debt than in any other region.
• Current account deficits not only dwarfed those in central Europe, but also those in Asia in the late 1990s.

These explanations scratch the surface of the more important differences that stems from export structures. It is true that 2 of the 3 Baltic countries operated euro pegs, but this hardly justifies their higher suggested propensity to (i) join euro, (ii) attract capital inflows, (iii) borrow in foreign currencies. The CE3 currencies were reasonably stable in pre-crisis years, likelihood of joining euro was not substantially different, capital inflows comparable and, at least in case of Hungary, unhedged forex borrowing by households was equally prevalent. Thus we are left with the current account deficit to explain the difference in CE3 and B3 crisis experiences.

The difference in past current account deficits as well as present crisis experiences has a lot to do with different proportions and types of manufacturing established in these economies. Over the last two decades, Baltic countries were busy building service oriented economies, much to the applause of the outside world. They were providing logistical services to booming Russian exports and turned capital inflows into asset bubbles. They inflated their amicable growth rates by selling overvalued real estate to each other. Such growth drivers all but evaporated in the crisis and they offer limited opportunities for export-led recovery that are already hampered by the need to sustain the currency peg.

The CE3 built old fashion manufacturing economies that produced “stuff” for exports. Much of the capital inflow were direct investments into export-oriented production facilities. They have also achieved some progress in upgrading into more sophisticated export goods and are thus more tightly integrated into global supply chains. In crisis their industries proved more susceptible to stimulus packages in their export markets (such as cash for clunkers subsidies in Germany) and to replenishment of inventories that seem to drive the recent “green shoots”. Moreover, depreciation of their currencies puts their export industries into a promising position for export-led recovery once their export markets (Germany) start to recover.

The scholars who stubbornly insisted that there is no sustainable development without industrialization and industrial upgrading seem to be vindicated by this comparative experience.

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Anti-crisis policies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia: what do they have in common?

By Lucia Kurekova and Katka Svickova

Czech Republic and Slovakia have diverged in their developmental paths and policy choices over the course of transition. In spite of common institutional legacy and very similar export profiles, sixteen years after separation, the policy choices frequently differ, perhaps not least because of opposing political orientations of their governing elites during different periods of transition. This is the case also today, when individual countries are facing the world economic downturn in their local shapes and forms: Slovakia is governed by social democratic/third way SMER in coalition with centre-right HZDS and nationalist SNS while the Czech Republic is headed by a centre-right government of Miroslav Topolanek. In spite of many similarities in how the crisis has been affecting these two countries, which are both heavily dependent on automotive industry, the remedies that the governments have passed are quite different.

The governments of both countries, however, shared a similar initial denial that the global crisis might have any significant effects on their domestic economies. In both countries, too, the opposition was coining a different message and suggesting their own recipes for a remedy. And in both countries, the governments have not been really listening to these voices. While the wounds to the economies of both countries have been caused by a deep dip of external demand for their exports of consumer durable goods, the reactions of both countries in the form of adopted anti-crises measures have been different. Is the reason for these different reactions an underlying difference in the state of these economies, as persuasively argued in the last week’s issue of the Economist, or is it purely an outcome of different ideological orientations and tastes of the governments steering the countries?

To summarize, the set of Czech anti-crisis measures has a strong pro-business flavor while the Slovak government has concentrated more on supporting the ‘ordinary citizens’ and keeping employment almost at any cost. Further, while the Czech measures are partially forward-looking and have a modernizing aspect (support for environmental measures, increase of R&D investment), this can hardly be said about any of the three Slovak anti-crisis packages. While the government of Robert Fico fiercely refuted any opposition calls to decrease further the 19% flat tax rate, the “tax package” that it passed in the end will make most of working Slovaks richer by about 10 euro per month via the raised tax deductible minimum. The Czech Republic, on the other hand, will not only reduce the corporate tax by another 2% in the next two years (only reaching, however, the current Slovak level of 19 %) but has also decreased social insurance deductions on salaries for employees by 1,5%. Instead of up to 2000 euro ‘srotovne’ (bonus on buying a new car and recycling an old car) passed after its success in Germany last week also in Slovakia, the Czech Republic decided to reduce the VAT for cars. Additional changes to the administrative and institutional business environment in the Czech Republic include an amendment of the insolvency law, faster depreciations, an abolishment of the obligation to pay an advance on income tax for self-employed and small enterprises (below 5 employees) or enhancing the provision of export loans to businesses and loan guarantees for SMEs. The overall goal is to reduce the cost of labor and thus, desirably, preserve employment and facilitate the cash-flow for businesses. Fairly enough, Slovakia passed a handful of pro-business oriented measures too, among them easier book-keeping for self-employed and SMEs, faster depreciations, a quicker return of VAT to businesses or state guarantees for loans (up to 55% of the loans for companies employing less than 100 people).

However, the core of Slovak anti-crisis tools is in its ‘social package’. The leitmotif of the government is ‘keeping employment at any price’, which is not surprising in the light of the Slovak structural (read “high and persistent”) unemployment nightmare that has been present during the whole transition. Yet the set of job creation measures passed by the government is not only extremely complicated, but there are fears that many of them are very corruption-prone and might lead to more – rather than less - red tape. Measures such as state help to employers who are experiencing serious operational problems to cover the compulsory health and social insurance payments for their employees for a maximum of 60 days, or intentions to subsidize new jobs for a period of 12 months up to 15% of the costs of a new job in Bratislava region and 30% in the other regions of Slovakia are only examples of ways where crony practices and potential waste of money are likely to loom in unless the system is properly monitored and the support is given to enterprises with good prospects of future growth and innovation. The law on the support for one-man businesses started during the crisis, for example, had to be amended shortly after it came into effect following cases of its misuse.

There are a few instances, however, where the countries seem to stand out in a positive way. Bratislava has been praised for keeping its investment incentives to foreign firms - and extending them to domestic investors. Czech Republic, on the other hand, plans to invest more into R&D, a field where nearly every country has been trying to save during the crisis. Both of these measures are forward-looking. And although they are unlikely to act as immediate fire-fighters against the slump, which is projected to be the deepest in the next moths, the countries will be grateful for them in the mid-term to long-term period.

To answer our question from the beginning on the cause of the divergence of policy reactions in the two countries, the color of the governing coalitions seems to explain a lot of the outlined differences. At the same time, however, Slovakia has a long-lasting experience with high unemployment to which the society is extremely sensitive. In addition, both countries will need to deal with the issue of migration, but from very different ends: the Czech Republic is trying to figure out how to send back some of its foreign labor that has served it well until now, while Slovakia should start monitoring who and in which proportions is coming back to the country from nearer (Czech Republic) or farther abroad (Britain and Ireland). Lastly, Slovakia, now an EMU member, is not spending any of its energy on defending its currency, while the Czech Republic is less lucky in its respect. But then – it has one more tool at hands in dealing with the crisis cycle and its exporters are more competitive than the Slovaks exporters.

This brief comparison of reactions to the domestic repercussions of the world economic crisis in two Central and Eastern economies also contributes to underline a broader trend of divergence in the development of the countries from the whole Central and Eastern European region, despite a shared legacy as centrally-planned economies.

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5th CEU Graduate Conference in Social Sciences

PERG organizes panels on political economy at 5th CEU Graduate Conference in Social Sciences: “Old Challenges in a New Era: Development and Participation”

19-21 June, 2009
Central European University
Budapest, Hungary
www.ceu.hu/polscijournal


2009 represents a crucial year which is testing our ability to deal with substantial political and economic challenges. Bringing a continuation of the economic crisis, the deepening of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a new American administration, and a severe energy crisis for several of the EU members, this period is proven to be a problematic reality check for our policies and theories. Reality shows to be one more time ahead of scholars’ conceptualizations, politicians’ capabilities, and policy-makers’ solutions. With the many challenges ahead, we hope to generate interdisciplinary academic debates that tackle relevant topics in their fields of research. At the same time, we hope to connect different perspectives and approaches in order to produce high standard academic works.
We encourage graduate students and young faculty to contribute with papers and panel proposals on multiple topics. The working language of the conference is English.


Political Economy Research Group (PERG) at CEU has taken over the organization of the panels related to political economy, more specifically:

• Political economy of foreign direct investment
• Diversity between forms of capitalism in the world
• Political economy of the enlarged EU
• Political economy of development and poverty

For a list of all panels visit: www.ceu.hu/polscijournal

We particularly welcome panels proposed by scholars coming from different institutions. A panel can be proposed using the special panel form and should be accompanied by the titles and abstracts (maximum 300 words) of five papers included in the panel. Application forms can be downloaded from www.ceu.hu/polscijournal. All applications should be sent to gradconf2009@yahoo.com.

Deadlines:
- The deadline for panel proposals is April 1, 2009.
- The deadline for paper proposals is April 15, 2009.
- Accepted applicants will be notified by April 30, 2008.
- Applications after deadlines are not be considered.

The paper applications consist of:
- Completed application form (Including the abstract – max. 250 words)
- Short CV (maximum 2 pages)
- (Optional) Applicants for travel grant: Short letter for justification (up to 300 words)

The panel applications consist of:
- Completed application form
- Short CV of the panel chair (max. 2 pages). Panel chairs have the travel costs covered up to a certain amount.

Financial support:
There is no registration fee for qualified participants. Food and
accommodation are provided by the organizers. Applicants can apply for
a partial travel grant for the cheapest means of transportation. Those
intending to apply for a travel grant should write a short letter of
justification (up to 300 words).

NOTE: In case you do not receive confirmation within 72 hours please re-send your application.


For further inquiries about the conference please e-mail to: gradconf2009@yahoo.com.

For more details about PERG visit:

http://web2.ceu.hu/perg

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What the Varieties of Capitalism framework does and does not tell us about the troubles of the Big Three

By Vera Šćepanović, CEU PhD Candidate, Political Science

Now that the heat of debates over the US auto industry bail-out has somewhat subsided, here are a few belated thoughts in response to the earlier post “What does Varieties of Capitalism have to say about the bailout of the U.S. auto industry?” (by Kristin Makszin). There’s always something suspicious when a theory comes together so smoothly. Indeed, according to the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) framework, automobile industry should not have existed in the US at all. To the extent the theory relies on sector-specific properties in the division of labour it envisages between coordinated and liberal market economies (skill specificity, pace of innovation, investment time horizons etc.), a mature manufacturing industry does not sit well with a dynamic liberal market environment which ought to support radical innovation, easily transferable workers’ skills and is characterised by a volatile investment environment.

Now, the demise of Detroit looks like a final victory for the theory, especially since the US Big Three seemed to display exactly the characteristics of a firm embedded in a coordinated market environment: close relations with the trade unions, long-term support of the workforce (instead of the supposedly typical adversarial labour relations and flexible fire and hire policies), and little display of radical innovation (e.g. few “greener” cars). And we know from the VoC that complementarities between the national institutional environment and firm operations are the key to success. If the complementarities fail, somebody is bound to suffer. The debate still rages whether it will be the firm or the national institutional environment.

But the question is, why did the Big Three let themselves be tricked into this trap, why did the companies that have been through the thick and thin of the international markets for the last hundred years fail to see what a handful of academics understood so clearly?

(And the Japanese, don’t forget them. The well-justified worries over Detroit seem to have made everybody forget about “the rest” of the US auto industry – 2008 was a bad year for the carmakers all around, but apart from that for all we know the East Asian transplants in the US have all been rather alive and well. Which sort of spoils the possibilities for sectoral generalisations. True, they found a different way to make cars – the one that calls for fewer skilled workers, no unions and more adversarial labour relations. All that means for the VoC framework is that the I-make-machines-you-make-chips division of labour between CMEs and LMEs may have been a tad too rough if usefully illustrative shorthand.)

The answer, I suspect, lies in the incompleteness of the framework, which is essentially that of a production model. There’s one way in which the stubborn clinging of the Big Three to their big expensive cars and big expensive workforce makes sense, and that’s if we conceive of it as a giant, if restricted, Fordist scheme to secure the market. Which only makes sense if we believe that these multinational juggernauts are that dependent on the US market. Surprisingly enough, that really seems to be the case.

Contributions of North American and rest-of-the-world operations to GM’s global net profit, 1960-2007 (compiled from annual reports, based on Bruno Jetin:2004)

In the example of GM, the foreign operations provided a small if positive contribution to its global profits since the 1960s, and when they plunged with the advent of the two oil crises the gains on the national market were more than enough to offset the losses. It was only at the end of this period that GM started to pursue more aggressive expansion in the foreign markets which paid off during the general recession of the early 1990s, but already since the mid-1990s the national (US) operations started to regain primacy, while the international front appeared was on the retreat. Only since 2005 the contraction of the US market and the success of GM’s Chinese operations have been changing the picture a little. Still, in 2007 GM sold 4.5 million cars in the US, which is only a few less than in all of the other countries of the world put together. The situation is very similar with Ford (see the graph below). Simply, the US carmakers have always relied heavily on their home markets, and the strategy has paid off. Then in 2005 something went amiss (probably with the beginning of the oil price hikes) and the three years since have been too little to make a significant turnaround. The question is, what kind of a turnaround should it be?

Contributions of North American and rest-of-the-world operations to Ford’s global net profit, 1960-2007 (compiled from annual reports, based on Bruno Jetin:2004

The VoC and the concerned observers suggest one direction with several routes: get rid of the overpaid workers (which would imply endangering the market potential even further); get rid of the costs of supporting workers’ purchasing power while keeping the market afloat (presumably by somehow transforming the national institutional environment to externalise the costs of provision of healthcare, unemployment benefits and pensions); or innovate and move into new markets (start making green, hybrid etc. cars). The problem with the first two is that they may take time and be socially difficult to execute. The problem with the latter deserves some elaboration.

The financial crisis of 2008 caused an awful drop of the car sales in the US across all market segments. The small car segment suffered the least (only – 1.1%, as compared to the -18% in the industry), but the small car segment in the US market represents only about 15% of the overall sales (as compared to West European market where the market share of the equivalent segment is 27%). The fact that the US manufacturers choose to focus on the bigger, more expensive and less fuel-efficient cars is therefore the function of their dependence on the US market with its peculiar characteristics (which, incidentally, may also have limited their success internationally, given the different preferences in other markets, and has also made them more vulnerable to the downturn which took a greater toll on the large and luxury segments). Forcing the Big Three to rethink their production strategy and start making smaller, fuel-efficient cars or innovate in the direction of hybrid and electric cars in exchange for the bailout will only work if there is a market to sell them. And taking a cue for Toyota’s decision to delay the production of its Prius hybrid in the US indefinitely, one suspects that the times are not propitious.

This is all not to say that the Big Three are not ripe for restructuring or that the humanity is not in a dire need of a cleaner solution for transportation. But the two may not go together as smoothly as we would like to think they should. The Varieties of Capitalism is a story of how every wheel of the system comes together like clockwork, but we just might be seeing them grind each other to halt.

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What does Varieties of Capitalism have to say about the bailout of the U.S. auto industry?

By Kristin Makszin

The different perspectives on whether or not to bailout the U.S. auto industry vary according to the alleged cause of the ‘crisis’ for the auto industry. Was this crisis caused by recent economic events (i.e. financial crisis, fall in consumption), bad decisions by the big three company leadership over time (producing SUVs, not fuel efficient automobiles), burdens of health and pension commitments to retired auto workers (a result of organized labor), political decisions, unstable oil prices, …?



Obviously there are multiple reasons why the auto companies are in the situation that they are currently in. But the problems in the U.S. auto industry are not new. Arguably, the current challenges are a continuation of a thirty year story – or perhaps an even longer one. The many events on this thirty year time line suggest that the U.S. auto industry is fragile. Which raises the question: can it be saved? And what would it take to save it?

Analysis of the current situation of the U.S. auto industry emphasizes the importance of the political and economic institutions that form the context in which businesses are embedded. Auto production began to move away from Detroit (to other countries and even other parts of the USA)—many argue—because of the high level of organization of auto workers in Detroit. But the decline of the auto industry in Detroit was also assisted by shifts in the global economy that allowed car production to increase in other parts of the world (the U.S.A. lost its comparative advantage in car production). Further the big three auto producers (GM, Chrysler, Ford) fell behind in the newest and most important innovation: greener cars. The reason that the U.S. auto industries fell behind in the ‘greening’ process could be blamed on the decisions of company executives, the American consumer, U.S. foreign policy, … But it is clear that NOW is time for the auto industry to innovate and the big three are already behind.

According to the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) framework, the U.S. economy relies on complementarities between deregulated labor markets, innovative product markets, competitive relationships between firms, a financial system where firms raise money from equity markets, and an educational system promoting general skills. The auto industry seems to be the exception to the liberal market economy framework. The strength of labor is impossible to ignore, thanks to the United Auto Workers. It would be hard to describe anything that happened in Detroit in the last 30 years as a part of innovative product markets. The big three have formed a ‘cooperative’ relationship in begging for the bailout. From a Varieties of Capitalism perspective, it does not seem surprising that the U.S. auto industry could not survive without the complementary institutions. Now that the equity-based financing is not sufficient and the executives of the big three (and many others in Detroit) argue that government funding should be used to keep these business alive-- because they are "too big" to fail.

Some Republican Senators (among others) have suggested that part of the bail out should demand pay cuts from the United Auto Workers and that innovation should be forced towards a more environmentally friendly car. Interestingly, the Republican Senators are addressing two other dimensions of the auto industry that seem to be mismatched with the liberal market economy capitalism that is predominate in the USA. But, from the lens of the varieties of capitalism framework, it is clear that the bailout package (even with all potential additional stipulations) would be incapable of making the auto industry work in the absence of complementary institutions. So perhaps it is time for Schumpeterian ‘creative destruction’ in Detroit.

From the streets of Detroit, the need for a bailout for the auto industry is clear. Too many lives and companies depend on it. If the big three are allowed to go bankrupt, Detroit will suffer and there will likely be strong ripple effects. But it seems clear at this point, a short term bailout is not enough. Drastic changes will be needed if the auto industry will survive in Detroit. If the big three stand a chance, they must use the advantages of their (supposed) institutional context to be the leaders in innovation towards greener cars. But it might already be too late. The only thing that seems certain for Detroit is that everything will change. Either the big three automakers will face real reform or they will continue their slow descent until U.S. auto production is only a memory.

The effects of this for Detroit are clear. But what will this mean for automakers in Europe and Asia?

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