ESTA NOCHE,
donde usted se entera no de todo lo que ocurre, sino de lo que necesita saber.
MENU DEL DIA
ü El presidente del Congreso, Luis
Iberico, rechazó la propuesta del titular del JNE de convocar a legislatura
extraordinaria para ver las modificaciones a la Ley de Partidos Políticos
publicada por el Gobierno en pleno proceso electoral. Sin embargo, añadió que
la decisión corresponde al presidente Humala
ü La Oficina Desconcentrada de Control
de la Magistratura abrió investigación preliminar al juez que admitió el
recurso de hábeas corpus de Eva Fernenbug, suegra de Toledo
ü Petro-Perú y Refinería La
Pampilla de Repsol anunciaron que el precio de gasolinas y gasoholes se redujo
en S/0,43 por galón
ü En los últimos 18 meses, cerca de un billón
de dólares en flujos de inversión se retiraron de las economías emergentes de
todo el planeta
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MEDIA COLUMNA
Alerta de virus
Jorge Morelli
@jorgemorelli1
jorgemorelli.blogspot.com
Al publicar la ley que modifica las reglas en pleno proceso electoral,
el gobierno ha introducido un virus en el sistema.
El presidente del JNE ha dicho que no puede resolver las incógnitas creadas
y que necesita que el Congreso las resuelva en legislatura extraordinaria.
El presidente del Congreso, acto seguido, anuncia con razón que le
parece contraproducente debatir este tema a estas alturas, y señala que, en
todo caso, convocar a una legislatura extraordinaria le corresponde al presidente
de la República.
Y el premier Cateriano anuncia a continuación que el JNE tiene la
obligación de cumplir la ley.
En suma, están jugando al gran bonetón. Y no está claro cómo se va a
resolver ni a quién le toca resolverlo.
Se ha inoculado un virus que amenaza con colgar el sistema. Se ha introducido
en el proceso electoral una anomalía que mañana puede causar que el proceso entero
sea objeto de impugnación por cualquiera de los participantes.
No puede descartarse que este haya sido un acto deliberado de sabotaje
electoral. Y tiene que ser cortado de raíz ahora mismo.
REPORTE DE NOTICIAS en Internet
Las
siguientes notas periodísticas de política y economía han sido seleccionadas,
editadas y ordenadas
temáticamente. No se las debe citar como
tomadas directamente de sus fuentes originales, las mismas que se indican sólo
como una forma de reconocer el crédito y agradecer la cortesía.
ELECCIONES, PARTIDOS, ENCUESTAS, MEDIOS,
PSICOSOCIALES
RPP
El presidente del
Congreso, Luis Iberico, rechazó la propuesta del titular del Jurado Nacional de
Elecciones, Francisco Távara, de convocar a legislatura extraordinaria para ver
las modificaciones introducidos a la Ley de Partidos Políticos publicada por el
Gobierno en pleno proceso electoral.
“Me parece
contraproducente convocar a una legislatura extraordinaria”, aseveró. Sin
embargo, dejó en claro que él no puede decir que la sesión extraordinaria no se
convocará porque ello corresponde al jefe de Estado.
El Comercio
El
primer ministro Pedro Cateriano señaló hoy que el Jurado Nacional
de Elecciones tiene la obligación de cumplir con lo que
establece la nueva ley de partidos.
En
la víspera este órgano electoral pidió al Congreso que convoque a
una sesión extraordinaria para pronunciarse sobre las modificaciones.
"La Constitución es clara en su artículo 109. La
ley es obligatoria desde el día siguiente de su publicación en el diario
oficial", aseveró Cateriano en Twitter.
ANTICORRUPCION, PERSECUCION, JUDICIALIZACION
POLITICA
RPP
El juez Manuel Céspedes,
quien admitió un recurso de hábeas corpus de Eva Fernenbug, suegra de Alejandro
Toledo, fue parte de Perú Posible durante seis años, según el JNE.
Por este motivo, la
Oficina Desconcentrada de Control de la Magistratura (Odecma) le abrió
investigación preliminar.
LIBERTAD ECONOMICA,
GLOBALIZACION, REFORMAS, INVERSION
El Comercio
Petro-Perú
y Refinería La Pampilla de Repsol anunciaron que el precio de gasolinas y
gasoholes se redujo en S/0,43 por galón, mientras el GLP vehicular
bajó S/0,03 por litro.
El
Organismo Peruano de Consumidores y Usuarios (Opecu) instó a los grifos a
reflejar estas bajas en sus precios al público.
La
Asociación de Grifos y Estaciones de Servicio del Perú (Agesp) afirmó que esta
reducción se hará efectiva cuando se acaben los stocks de combustible, lo cual
puede ocurrir el mismo día o unos días después.
Gestión
El BCR reportó hoy que la recaudación tributaria cayó 7.7% el 2015.
Gestión
El MEF sostuvo hoy que la economía peruana crecerá entre un 3.5% y 4% este año.
Desde Davos, el
ministro de economía, Alonso Segura, afirmó que el Perú, el tercer productor
mundial de cobre, espera que la producción del metal crezca 66% en el 2016, después de que Las Bambas
inicie operaciones.
Peru21
Este
miércoles se inició el Foro Económico Mundial (WEF por sus siglas en
inglés) en Davos, Suiza. El tema principal es la crisis de las economías
emergentes.
En los
últimos 18 meses, cerca de un billón de dólares en flujos de inversión se
retiraron de las economías emergentes.
A esto
se debe sumar que EE.UU. se encuentra revisando su política monetaria y el
dólar se fortalece, la economía china se ha desacelerado y los precios del
cobre y el petróleo se han desplomado.
Peru21
En el
Foro Económico Mundial (WEF, por sus siglas en inglés) de Davos se realizó este
jueves el conversatorio ¿Hacia dónde va la economía china?, el panel estuvo
conformado por Jiang Jianqing (presidente del Banco Industrial y Comercial de
China), Francine Lacqua (presentadora de Bloomberg), Ray Dalio (presidente de
Brigdewater Asociados), Zhang Xin (fundadora y presidente de SOHOChina),
Christine Lagarde (Fondo Monetario Internacional)J, Fang Xinghai
(vicepresidente de la Comisión Reguladora de Valores de China) y Gary D. Cohn
(Grupo Goldman Sachs).
Respecto
a la moneda china, Lagarde indicó que a los mercados no les gusta la
inseguridad, no saber en qué dirección va a cotizar el renminbi (yuan).
Por su
parte el representante de la Comisión de Valores de China, Fang Xinghai, dijo
que el gobierno chino se ha comprometido a un nuevo enfoque en el que se
gestionaría el yuan de acuerdo a su desempeño respecto a todas las monedas de
la cesta del FMI, en lugar de sólo compararse con al dólar estadounidense.
Brookings
Institution
The dollar´s
international role: an exorbitant privilege?
Ben Bernanke
This post
is the third of three based on my Mundell-Fleming lecture, which discussed the
international effects of Fed policy (see here for a video of the lecture and here for a paper that expands on the lecture’s themes). In the two previous posts (see hereand here), I addressed a pair of criticisms of recent U.S.
monetary policy: (1) that the U.S. had engaged in “currency wars” by
depreciating the dollar for competitive advantage in trade; and (2) that shifts
in U.S. monetary policy have had spillover effects on financial stability in
other countries, especially emerging markets.
These debates raise yet another question: Why is the
Fed the principal subject of such critiques, even though other major central
banks have also engaged in aggressive monetary policies? A common answer is
that the dominant role of the U.S. dollar in international trade and
finance—about 60 percent of international reserves are held in
dollar-denominated assets, for example—makes Fed actions particularly consequential.
That in turn, it is sometimes argued, confers a special responsibility on U.S.
policymakers to take the international implications of their actions into
account.
Why is the dollar the most often-used global currency?
Does the dollar’s international role unfairly advantage the United States, to
the detriment of other countries? Does the dollar’s role magnify the effects of
Fed actions on other countries, and if so, how? I’ll touch on these questions
in this post. I’ll argue that the benefits of the dollar’s status to the United
States have been much reduced in recent decades, and that a principal channel
of the Fed’s international influence works through dollarized credit markets.
The dollar’s international role has evolved since
World War II. During the early postwar period, under a 1944 agreement
negotiated by the U.S. and its allies at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, other
currencies were pegged to the dollar while the dollar was (loosely) pegged to
gold (see here for a discussion of how the Bretton Woods framework related to other
international monetary systems). The
goal was to replace the gold standard, which had collapsed during the
Depression, with something more flexible. In practice, however, the system
afforded the greatest flexibility to the United States, which enjoyed
substantial freedom to pursue its domestic policy objectives as well as the
ability to run sustained balance-of-payments deficits. The latter, according to
French finance minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, gave the United States an
“exorbitant privilege.” The Bretton Woods system ultimately broke down in part
because the U.S., as the “anchor” country, didn’t live up to its obligation to
maintain price stability. Since the early 1970’s the international monetary
system has been effectively decentralized, with each country setting its own
exchange-rate framework and with the values of the major currencies being
determined by markets (“floating” rather than fixed exchanged rates).
Bretton Woods was enforced by central banks and other
policymakers. In the current decentralized regime, decisions about which
currencies to use in trade and finance (other than in official reserve
holdings) are made largely by market participants. Why has the dollar retained
pre-eminence despite this major shift? The most important reason is certainly
inertia. People are accustomed to using the dollar in international
transactions, and the willingness of others to take dollars increases their
usefulness (economists call this a “network externality”). But in recent
decades the dollar has also proved its worth as an international medium of
exchange. Among the benefits it provides users are:
1. Stability of value. Since the mid-1980s, the Fed has done a good job keeping inflation low
and stable.
2. Liquidity. U.S. financial markets, especially the U.S. Treasury market, are the
deepest and most liquid in the world. In part this is the result of network
externalities (people like to trade in the Treasury market because other people
trade in it) but there are structural reasons as well. For example, the
Treasury market is large and homogeneous, while the market for government bonds
traded in euros (a leading potential competitor to the dollar) is fragmented by
country of issuance.
3. Safety. Despite Congressional shenanigans surrounding the debt limit, there is a
large supply of dollar assets considered to be very safe, including Treasury
securities. More generally, the dollar is a “safe haven” currency, which tends
to appreciate during periods of stress—a fact that makes holding dollar assets
attractive in normal times as well.
4. Lender of last resort. The Fed served as a backstop provider of dollars during the financial
crisis by instituting currency swaps with fourteen central banks, including
four in emerging markets. Under the currency swaps, foreign central banks could
obtain dollars which in turn they lent to banks in their jurisdictions which
needed to transact in dollars.
On the other side of the ledger, what benefits does
the United States derive from issuing the currency that is most used
internationally? Some of the benefits are symbolic, a sort of “good
housekeeping seal of approval” for U.S. markets, institutions, and policies.
(Actually, the benefits of having an international currency are arguably mostly symbolic; for example, China’s efforts
to internationalize the renminbi seem driven in large part by a quest for international recognition.) The tangible benefits to the U.S. of issuing the
world’s principal reserve currency—the “exorbitant privilege”—have, I think,
been significantly eroded by the greater actual or potential competition from
other currencies, such as the euro and the yen, and by America’s shrinking
share of the global economy. In particular, the interest rates that the U.S.
pays on safe assets, such as government debt, are generally no lower (and are
currently higher) than those paid by other creditworthy industrial countries.
The point is illustrated by Figure 1, which shows real interest rates paid on
the government debt of five countries, as calculated from inflation-indexed
bonds.
What else?
A great deal of U.S. currency is held abroad, which amounts to an interest-free
loan to the United States. However, the interest savings are probably on the
order of $20 billion a year, a small fraction of a percent of U.S. GDP, and
that “seigniorage,” as it is called, would probably still exist even if the
dollar lost ground to other currencies in more-formal less informal
international transactions. U.S. firms may face slightly less exchange-rate
risk in international transactions, but that benefit should not be overstated
since the dollar floats against the currencies of most of our largest trading
partners. The safe haven aspect of the dollar is actually a negative for U.S.
firms, since it implies that they become less competitive (the dollar is
stronger) at precisely the times that global economic conditions are most
difficult.
Overall, the fact that English is the common language
of international business and politics is of considerably more benefit to the
United States than is the global role of the dollar. The exorbitant privilege
is not so exorbitant any more.
What about the question of how the dollar’s special
role affects the transmission of Fed policy abroad? Put another way, what
international effects does a monetary policy action by the Fed have that
wouldn’t also follow from a similar action by, say, the European Central Bank
or the Bank of Japan? Probably the most important differential channel of
effect for Fed actions arises from the fact that many borrowers in the emerging
world, both banks and corporations, borrow heavily in dollar-denominated terms,
even when dealing with non-US lenders. Borrowing in dollars allows
emerging-market banks and firms access to larger and more liquid global credit
markets while protecting lenders from unexpected fluctuations in local-currency
exchange rates. That so much debt is dollarized certainly makes Fed policy more
powerful internationally than it would otherwise be.
We need to be careful here though. Despite the fact
that much international borrowing is denominated in dollars, it doesn’t follow
that the Fed is the “world’s central bank.” Consider an emerging-market firm
whose revenues and costs are mostly in the local currency. Even if that firm
routinely borrows in a dollarized credit market, the interest rate relevant to
the firm’s investment and hiring decisions is the cost of borrowing as measured
in terms of the local currency, not the dollar interest rate. So, if the Fed
lowers the dollar interest rate, the firm’s relevant cost of borrowing may not
fall, or may not fall by as much, as the dollar rate—it depends on what the
firm expects about the exchange rate between the dollar and the local currency.
If the dollar is expected to appreciate, for example, then “cheaper” dollar
borrowing is not necessarily cheaper from the perspective of to the
emerging-market firm, because paying back the loan will be more expensive in
local-currency terms. In short, Fed easing (that is, lowering the dollar
interest rate) does not mean necessarily that borrowers around the world also
face easier conditions. Their effective cost of borrowing depends instead on
multiple factors, including borrowers’ expectations and the policy responses of
foreign central banks.
I suspect that, in practice, Fed policy affects
emerging-market borrowers less through theexpected cost of borrowing and more through the realized cost, that is, the cost of repaying
existing loans. Many (probably most) dollar loans to foreign borrowers are not
hedged against risk of changes in currency values. If the Fed tightens, say,
and the dollar appreciates sharply and unexpectedly, then what initially
appeared to be cheap dollar loans can become very costly after the fact,
because they must be repaid in expensive dollars (see here for more). Higher real debt burdens stress the balance
sheets of emerging-market borrowers, which may lead them to reduce lending,
investing, and hiring. For this reason, the Fed’s tightening may be felt as a
tightening in foreign economies as well. Obviously, this effect would not be as
strong if less foreign borrowing was denominated in dollars, or if dollar
borrowing were better hedged against exchange-rate risks.
With the Fed now beginning to raise interest rates,
the risks implied by a stronger dollar for emerging-market borrowers should be
carefully monitored. The good news is that the dollar has appreciated
considerably in the last eighteen months or so and no major financial problems
have apparently resulted. That’s no reason to be complacent, however. If
emerging-market banks and corporations come under financial pressure, that
could slow emerging-market economies and hurt investments in those countries.
More generally, the risks to financial stability of unhedged borrowing provide
a basis for emerging-market governments to monitor and possibly constrain
access to dollarized credit markets in the future. The most natural place to do
this is in the banking system, where regulators should check to make sure that
lenders are not over-exposed to the risk of dollar appreciation.
