Le nuove vittime della crisi del debito: le ricche economie sviluppate
– La forte crescita del rendimento dei titoli di Stato greci indicherebbe che gli investitori non ritengono sufficiente il salvataggio congiunto FMI-UE e si attendono la ristrutturazione del debito greco.
o L’aumento del debito seguente alle crisi finanziarie non deriva dai costi diretti dei salvataggi alle banche, ma dalla caduta delle entrate fiscali e dall’aumento della spesa statale con il rallentamento dell’economia.
● In realtà, la ristrutturazione del debito non è una conclusione ancora scontata: il rapporto debito/PIL non è l’unico metro di valutazione importante; numerose le variabili da considerare.
o Secondo un ex funzionario FMI, ora dell’InterAmerican Dialogue (thin tak di Washington) il modello FMI-BM utilizzato soprattutto per i paesi poveri, fa ritenere che un paese con forti politiche economiche è in grado di sostenere un debito pari alla metà del suo PIL, il doppio del suo export e 3 volte le entrate del bilancio. i costi di servizio del debito non dovrebbero superare il 25-35% delle entrate.
o Il debito greco, previsto al 124% del PIL a fine 2010, appare alto (per un confronto, a fine guerra il debito dell’UK era a quasi il 240%, e rimase al 100% fino al 1961, senza che lo Stato fallisse),
o ma il costo del debito greco è di circa il 32% delle entrate statali, e i suoi interessi al 13%, metà di quello della Turchia.
– Circa l’86% del debito greco è detenuto dall’estero (dati FMI), e gran parte in altri paesi della zona euro, in primo luogo a banche ed assicurazioni. In caso di fallimento, si tratterebbe di una “questione di famiglia” della zona euro, un motivo per cui molti pensano che la Grecia potrà facilmente ottenere aiuti da altri governi dell’euro quest’anno, e per i prossimi due anni.
● Secondo studi storici dei processi economici (degli economisti Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff), nei tre anni seguenti ad una crisi il debito del governo centrale cresce dell’86%:
o é quanto sta accadendo in alcuni grandi paesi dell’Europa e che fa paventare all’FMI – in caso di fallimento dello Stato greco – una crisi del debito per il Portogallo, e in misura minore Spagna e Italia.
o Se l’Italia vuole evitare la sorte della Grecia deve ridurre il suo deficit di un altro 4% del PIL, e attuare una svalutazione reale con un taglio del 6% ai salari e con riforme economiche; stessa ricetta per la Spagna (Uri Dadush, ex funzionario BM, ora al Carnegie Endowment di Washington)
o Diversamente da oggi, nel periodo seguente la crisi del debito messicana del 1982, origine e vittime delle maggiori crisi finanziarie furono le economie povere emergenti.
o Da uno studio previsionale richiesto a Oxford Economics dal Ernst & Young, per il 2014 il debito dei governi della zona euro supererà l’88% del PIL.
– Secondo le previsioni più rosee, e cioè in assenza di fallimento dello Stato greco, il debito dell’Italia sarà del 126% del PIL, il maggiore della zona euro;
– 116%, per la Grecia;
– 109%, Belgio;
– 102%, Portogallo;
– 100%, Francia;
– 89%, Irlanda;
– 81%, Spagna;
– 74%, Germania.
Secondo altre previsioni UK e USA raggiungerebbero il 100%, anche se ¼ del debito americano è detenuto da altri organismi governativi, come il Social Security Trust Fund, e non dal pubblico.
Debt Crises’ New Victims: Rich Developed Economies
– With financial markets hyperventilating about the prospect of a debt default by the Greek government, the International Monetary Fund fretted aloud this week about the prospects for a sovereign debt crisis—centered on Europe.
– Since Mexico announced it couldn’t pay its bank debts in 1982, poor emerging economies have been the origin and main victims of most big financial crises. This time, it’s the governments of developed economies and their bloated debt burdens that are the focus of concern.
– Greek bond yields have now risen to levels that suggest investors believe even a joint IMF-euro zone bailout won’t be enough to avoid a debt restructuring for Greece. In a report this week, the IMF said Portugal, and to a lesser extent Spain and Italy, would be the most likely to suffer from contagion if Greece goes over the edge.
– Surges of government debt follow financial crises—not because of the direct costs of bank bailouts but mainly because tax revenues fall and government spending rises in the resulting economic slowdown. Following an exhaustive historical study, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have calculated that central-government debt increases in real terms by 86% on average during the three years following a crisis.
– That increase is well under way in major economies, which is why sovereign-debt worries are growing. By 2014, according to a private forecast commissioned from Oxford Economics by the accountancy firm Ernst & Young and published last week, euro-zone governments’ debt will exceed 88% of annual gross domestic product.
– Under fairly benign economic assumptions, including no Greek default, the forecast sees Italy’s debt-to-GDP ratio growing to 126% of GDP, the highest in the euro zone, followed by Greece, 116%, Belgium, 109%, Portugal 102%, France, 100%, Ireland, 89% and Spain, 81%.
– Germany’s would be 74% of GDP. Other projections suggest the debt of the UK. and the U.S. will touch 100%, though a quarter of the U.S. debt is held by other government bodies, such as the Social Security Trust Fund, not the public.
– Yet debt restructuring is far from a foregone conclusion. For one thing, debt-to-GDP isn’t the only relevant yardstick.
– Claudio Loser, a former senior IMF official now with the InterAmerican Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank, says the IMF will pore over a raft of variables to analyze whether Greece will be able to sustain its debt burden. Yesterday, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF’s managing director, said that a Greek debt restructuring isn’t under consideration, suggesting that he either had the result of that analysis or decided to pre-empt it.
– Mr. Loser said the IMF-World Bank model, used mainly for poorer countries, suggests a country with strong economic policies should be able to sustain a debt of half its GDP, twice its exports and three times government revenues.
– Debt-servicing costs—interest payments plus debt maturities—should be no more than 25% to 35% of revenues.
– By some measures, Greece’s debt looks high, at 124% of GDP at the end of 2010. (For comparison, the U.K. had debt at the end of World War II of close to 240%, remained above 100% until 1961, and it didn’t default.) But its debt-servicing bill is about 32% of government revenues, and its interest bill just 13%, half of that of Turkey.
Some other traditional measures of debt vulnerability may not be very relevant. Greece is borrowing in its own currency, so doesn’t have to worry about currency risks unless it leaves the euro.
– About 86% of Greek government debt is held by foreigners, according to the IMF, and much of that is owed to other members of the euro-zone, primarily to banks and insurance companies. A default would therefore be a euro-zone family affair: one important reason why many people think Greece is likely to get a bailout, if it needs one, from other euro-zone governments this year, next year and the year after.
– One interesting aspect of the IMF’s contagion analysis is that Ireland, in the line of fire a year ago, would escape the worst of a Greek default, despite its big budget deficit. (Eurostat, the European Union[e] statistical authority, said Thursday that because of a technical adjustment the Irish budget deficit was in fact 14.3% of GDP in 2009, rather than 11.7%.) That’s because investors appear to believe that Ireland has acted preemptively and decisively to get the deficit under control.
To avoid Greece’s plight, says Uri Dadush, a former World Bank official now at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, that’s exactly what Italy should do. It needs to move aggressively to cut its budget deficit by a further 4% of GDP over three years, and engineer a real devaluation through 6% in wage cuts and economic reforms. "I think the broad policy recommendations have general applicability in Spain too," he says.