torsdag 30 juni 2011

The stimulus: A microeconomic analysis

Detta inlägg skrevs ursprungligen på Right Speak men postas nu också här i en uppdaterad variant, med några bifogade svenska kommentarer. Ett inlägg som utgår från att Obamas stimulanspaket misslyckades och förklarar varför det misslyckades.

While I understand the title of this post probably scared away 90 % of all readers, let me assure the remaining 10 % that this post won't be nearly as complicated as it sounds.

First, for those of you who haven't studied economics, let me just introduce you to the terms macro and micro: Macroeconomics is all economics that concerns inflation, unemployment, growth etc. The "big" view so to speak. Microeconomics on the other hand, is about trade, competition (how a monopolist sets prices compared to a company with a lot of competitors), and most of all about incentives: Motivations for doing stuff, that is.

The above is a bit of a general, non-academic way of defining the areas, but basically that's what the different terms are all about.

The stimulus is often analysed and discussed from a macroeconomic perspective: How much growth has it created or not created, how much unemployment was caused or prevented, when will the government get the money back if at all etc.

This perspective is very important, of course. But if you're a conservative (and I know the very majority of our visitors, and all of our writers, are conservative) then you already agree that the stimulus was a failure.

The question is; why did it fail? Conservative pundits and activists may dumb it down to "Because Obama is a socialist".

Maybe he is, maybe he is not - let's not have that debate here, please - but the problem is deeper than that.

Keynesians (economists who support government intervention and steering of the economy) tend to ignore the most basic microeconomic question: Where are the incentives? Who has an incentive to improve the economy?

Keynesians make the mistake of looking at the country as an entity; they think "It would be best for the country to have an efficient stimulus package, so the country will get one".

What these economists forget is that ultimately, it is not the "country" which decides where stimulus money will be spent: It is the politicians who are governing the country. This makes a big difference: Instead of looking at what would be best for the country, we need to look at what would be best for the politicians (or, in economics language, what they have an incentive to do). Keynesian simply assume that politicians want the best for the country and nothing else. That's a glamorised, simplified view. It says that the utility (happiness, satisfaction) of a politician is a function of (depends on) the nation's economic health, and nothing else.

So in other words, if growth is 4 %, every member of the government will be happy, if it's 1 %, they'll start feeling a little down, and if it's -4 % we have to put the government on suicide watch.

Sounds a bit unrealistic, doesn't it? Just like with regular people, politicians "utility function" is complex. A politician may for example be perfectly fine with a growth rate of 2.5 % instead of 3 %, if that means 2 million more in campaign cash. We then say that this politician is indifferent between +2 million campaign, 2.5 % growth and no additional campaign money, and 3 % growth (meaning he thinks they are just as good).

Too complicated? Let's get to the point. A guy like Obama may know that it would be better to spend stimulus money in California, but he also knows that California will vote for him no matter what he does. He may also know that Utah could use some money, but they won't vote for him no matter what. So the money will be distributed in a way that is economically less than optimal, but it will maximize Obama's personal utility (which, as previously mentioned, is just another word for happiness or satisfaction).

Here is the key to the problem: The stimulus is certain to maximize the personal utility of the politicians involved in creating it, but far from certain to maximize the country's wealth and its citizens utility (ett bra exempel på det är den fd demokratiske kongressmannen John Murthas flygplats, som fick 800 000 i stimulanspengar. USA är dessutom ett land där öronmärkta pengar i rent politiska syften är en integrerad del av den ekonomiska politiken).

Still though, politicians care about being re-elected, don't they? And their re-election prospects are tied to the health of the economy, right? To a certain point, that is correct. Still, what's important is the headlines, not the actual health: If politicians can convince media that the economy is turning around, they will face positive headlines going into re-election and they will then still have a good shot (that was exactly what Obama tried to do with his "recovery summer" - en sommar som skulle visa sig inte alls leda till någon återhämtning). Also, if they can concentrate unemployment to certain areas (in non-swing states), that will be good enough for a presidential election. People don't look at numbers and graphs when they decide how to vote, they look at their own situation and their family, friends and neighbours situations: If no-one in your family, friend of neighbourhood is unemployed, you are no less likely to vote for the sitting president, even though you know unemployment is at 9 % nationally. It's sad, but people really are that egoistic.

We must also remember that presidential elections only happen once every 4 years (although, if you're hanging on Right Speak, you'll think they happened every month). As long as the recession is over and unemployment is down before that time, the sitting president need not worry. That's probably what Obama was thinking; that the crisis would be long over before 2012, even if some of the stimulus money was spent inefficiently.

Can you put together an efficient stimulus package? That will be the subject of my next post, but for now, let's just summarize: The reason why stimulus packages are so inefficient is because no-one who has any power over how they are shaped, have any incentive to create an efficient package, the incentive to spend stimulus money on special interests and swing states is greater than the incentive to actually help the economy as a whole. To do so, would be to let a good crisis go to waste.

Thanks for reading,

John Gustavsson

Se även tidigare inlägg:

Keynesian economics and its totalitarian consequences 20090908

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