Living with Low for Long

Charles BeanLondon School of Economics

Royal Economic Society Presidential Address

University of Manchester, 1 April 2015

Chart 1: 300 years of the BoE policy and consol rates

Source: Bank of England Historical database (http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/research/Pages/onebank/datasets.aspx#4)

Chart 2: Yield on 3-month and 10-year US Treasuries

Source: Hartnett & Leung (2015) “The Longest Pictures”, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

Chart 3: “World” real interest rate, 1985-2013(Spot yields on 10-year indexed bonds, G7 ex Italy)

Source: King and Low (2014) “Measuring the World Real Interest Rate”

Chart 4: UK real interest rate, 1700-2004

Source: Miles, Baker and Pillonca (2005)

Chart 5: Estimates of US short-term and long-run “World” real interest rates

Source: Hamilton, Harris, Hatzius and West (2015) “The Equilibrium Real Funds Rate: Past, Present and Future”

Growth and the interest rate

Assume an additively separable iso-elastic utility function with intra-period utility: The Euler equation is:

where = logarithm of consumption at date ; = real interest rate between and ; = household discount rate; = variance of the growth rate of consumption.

Chart 6: Global capital market

Investment,Savings

S’

S

I’

I

Real interest

rateS’

S

I

I’ O

O’

It is not so easy to foresee the future…

• “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” (Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1895)• “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

(Charles Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899)• “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial

value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” (David Sarnoff Associates, 1920s)• “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” (Head of Warner

Brothers, 1927)• “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

(Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943)• “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their

home.” (Ken Olsen, Chairman of DEC, 1977)

Chart 7: Savings and investment shares (% of GDP)

Source: IMF WEO database

Table 1: Longevity and change in required savings

*The required-savings calculation assumes complete consumption-smoothing from the age of ten until expected death, taking into account years of education, normal retirement age and population growth.Source: Teulings and Baldwin (2014), Secular Stagnation: Facts, Causes and Cures

Life expectancy (years) Change in required savings* (share of GDP)

1970 1990 2010 1970-90 1990-2010

US 70.9 75.3 78.6 2.08 0.72

China 62.9 69.5 74.9 -0.08 1.34

Japan 72.0 78.9 82.9 1.49 1.46

Germany 70.6 75.3 80.5 0.60 0.76

Chart 8: Savings rates by household type(a)

Source: Living Costs and Food (LCF) survey.(a) Saving ratios calculated using the average consumption and disposable income

levels for each group of households. Numbers in parentheses show their share of total income in 2007.

(b) High-debt mortgagors are defined as having outstanding mortgage debt of more than twice their annual disposable income. All other mortgagors are low debt.

Chart 9: Safe and risky yields

*Leverage-adjusted inverted Price-Earnings ratio.Source: Bank of England, following Broadbent (2014) “Monetary policy, asset prices and distribution”.

A loanable funds model with safe and risky assets

Risky assets: (+) (+) (+) (-)

Safe assets:

where: = yield on safe assets and = spread between the expected return on risky capital assets and the safe return.

The sum gives the usual loanable funds relationship:

Loanable funds:

The ratio gives an allocational relationship determining the spread:

Funds allocation:

Chart 10: Equilibrium with safe and risky assets

Spread,

FF

Safe rate,

IS

OOʹ

ISʹ

FFʹ

Oʺ

Table 2: Decline in supply of “safe” assets

Source: Caballero and Farhi (2014) “On the role of safe asset shortages in secular stagnation”.

US$ trn % of World GDP

2007 2011 2007 2011

US sovereign debt 5.1 10.7 9.2 15.8

German & French sovereign debt 2.4 3.3 4.5 4.8

Italian & Spanish sovereign debt 2.4 3.1 4.3 4.7

US MBS and ABS 11.3 9.6 20.2 14.2

“Safe” assets 20.5 12.3 36.9 18.1

Chart 11: Sterling liquid assets of UK banking sector(a)

Source: Bank of England.(a) Data for building societies are included from 2010 onwards. Prior to this, data are for UK banks only. Data are end-year

except for 2013 where end-November data are used.(b) Broad ratio: Cash + Bank of England balances + money at call + eligible bills + UK gilts.(c) Reserve ratio proxied by Bank of England balances + money at call + eligible bills.(d) Narrow ratio: Cash + Bank of England balances + eligible bills.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

1968 73 78 83 88 93 98 2003 08 13

Broad ratio

Reserve ratio

Narrow ratio

Percentage oftotal assets(all currencies)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Chart 12: Spot and forward yields on UK indexed gilts

Source: Bank of England

Chart 13: Forward Guidance - a calibrated example

Source: Bean “Nominal income targets: A new wine in an old bottle?” (2013).

Chart 14: Bank of England consolidated balance sheet

Source: Bank of England

Living with Low for Long

The End