Former Federal Reserve official Nathan Sheets said he expects the U.S. to use this week’s virtual meetings of the IMF and World Bank to argue that now is not the time for countries to pull back on assisting their economies.
It’s an argument that will be mostly directed at Europe, particularly Germany, with its long history of fiscal stringency. The EU’s 750 billion-euro ($885 billion) joint recovery fund won’t start until the second half of the year.
The U.S. will have two things going for it in making its case, Sheets said: A strengthening domestic economy and an internationally respected leader of its delegation in Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, no stranger to IMF meetings from her time as Fed Chair.
But the world’s largest economy could find itself on the defensive when it comes to vaccine distribution after accumulating massive supplies for itself. “We will hear a hue and cry emerge during these meetings for more equal access to vaccinations,” said Sheets, who is now the head of global economic research at PGIM Fixed Income.
And while America’s booming economy will undoubtedly act as a driver for the rest of the world by sucking in imports, there could also be some grumbling about the higher market borrowing costs that the rapid growth brings, especially from economies which aren’t as healthy.
“The Biden stimulus is a two edged sword,” said former IMF chief economist Maury Obstfeld, who is a now senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. Rising U.S. long-term interest rates “tighten global financial conditions. That has implications for debt sustainability for countries that went deeper into debt to fight the pandemic.”
JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief economist Bruce Kasman said he hasn’t seen such a wide gap in 20 to 25 years in the expected out-performance of the U.S. and other developed countries when compared with the emerging markets. That’s in part due to differences in distribution of the vaccine. But it’s also down to the economic policy choices various countries are making.
Having mostly slashed interest rates and started asset-purchase programs last year, central banks are splitting with some in emerging markets beginning to hike interest rates either because of accelerating inflation or to prevent capital from flowing out. Turkey, Russia and Brazil all raised borrowing costs last month, while the Fed and European Central Bank say they won’t be doing so for a long time yet.
Rob Subbaraman, head of global markets research at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Singapore, reckons Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, India, Mexico, Poland, the Philippines and South Africa all risk running overly-loose policies.
“With major developed market central banks experimenting on how hot they can run economies before inflation becomes a problem, emerging market central banks will need to be extra careful to not fall behind the curve, and will likely need to lead, rather than follow, their developed market counterparts in the next rate hiking cycle,” said Subbaraman.
In an April 1 video for clients, Kasman summed up the global economic outlook this way: “Boomy type conditions with quite wide divergences.”
—With assistance from Eric Martin.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.