Tag Archives: monetary policies

Dealing with the Fallout from U.S. Policies

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The divergence of monetary policies in the advanced economies continues to roil financial markets. The Federal Reserve has reacted to better labor market conditions by ending its quantitative easing policy. The Bank of Japan, on the other hand, will expand its purchases of securities, and the European Central Bank has indicated its willingness to undertake unconventional policies if inflation expectations do not rise. The differences in the prospects between the U.S. and Great Britain on the one hand and the Eurozone and Japan on the other has caused Nouriel Roubini to liken the global economy to a jetliner with only one engine still functioning.

The effect of U.S. interest rates on international capital flows is well-documented. Many countries are vulnerable to changes in U.S. policies that can reverse financial flows. Countries that have relied on capital flows searching for a higher yield to finance their current account deficits are particularly susceptible. Declining commodity prices reinforce the exposure of commodity exporters such as Brazil and Russia.

U.S. markets affect capital flows in other ways. Erlend Nier, Tahsin Saadi Sedik and Tomas Molino of the IMF have investigated the key drivers of private capital flows in a sample of emerging market economies during the last decade. They found that changes in economic volatility, as measured by the VIX (the Chicago Board Options Exchange Market Volatility Index, which measures the implied volatility of S&P 500 index options), are the “dominant driver of capital flows to emerging markets” during periods of global financial stress. During such periods, the influence of fundamental factors, such as growth differentials, diminishes. Countries can defend themselves with higher interest rates, but at the cost of slowing their domestic economies.

When the IMF’s economists included data from advanced economies in their empirical analysis, they found that the impact of the VIX was higher in those economies. They inferred that as countries develop financially, “capital flows could therefore be increasingly influenced by external factors.” Financial integration, therefore, will lead to more vulnerability to the VIX.

Volatility in U.S. equity markets drives up the VIX. Moreover, empirical analyses, such as one by Corradi, Distaso and Mele, find that U.S. variables, such as the Industrial Production Index and the Consumer Price Index, explain part of the changes in the VIX. U.S. economic conditions, therefore, affect global capital flows through more linkages than interest rates alone.

What are the implications for U.S. policymakers? The Federal Open Market Committee does not usually consider the impact of its policy directives on foreign economies. On the other hand, the Fed is well aware of the feedback from foreign economies to the U.S. Moreover, there are measures the U.S. could undertake to lessen the impact of its policy shifts on foreign markets.

During the global financial crisis, for example, the Federal Reserve established swap arrangements for 14 foreign central banks, including those of Brazil, Mexico, Singapore and South Korea. These gave the foreign financial regulators the ability to lend dollars to their banks that had financed holdings of U.S. assets by borrowing in the U.S. However, not all emerging markets’ central banks were deemed eligible for this financial relationship, leaving some of them disappointed (see Prasad, Chapter 11).

Federal Reserve officials have signaled that they are not interested in serving again as a source of liquidity. One alternative would be to allow the IMF to take over this capacity. But the U.S. Congress has not passed the legislation needed to implement long-overdue governance reforms at the Fund, and it is doubtful that the results of the recent elections will lead to a different stance. Not many foreign countries will be in favor of enabling the IMF to undertake new obligations until the restructuring of that institution’s governance is resolved.

Volatile capital flows have the potential of sabotaging already-anemic recoveries in many emerging market countries. The global financial architecture continues to lack reliable backstops in the event of more instability. The U.S. should cooperate with other nations and international financial institutions in addressing the fallout from its economic policies, either by directly providing liquidity or allowing the international institutions to do so.

Volatility in the Emerging Markets

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Volatility has returned to the financial markets. Stock prices in the U.S. have fallen from their September highs, and the return on 10-year Treasury bonds briefly fell below 2%.  Financial markets in emerging markets have been particularly hard hit. The Institute for International Finance estimates that $9 billion was withdrawn from equity markets in those countries in October, while the issuance of new bonds fell.

The increased volatility follows a period of rising allocations of portfolio investments by advanced economies to assets in the emerging market economies. The IMF’s latest Global Financial Stability Report reported that equity market allocations increased from 7% of the total stock of advanced economy portfolio investments in 2002 to almost 10% in 2012, which represented $2.4 trillion of emerging market equities. Similarly, bond allocations rose from 4% to almost 10% during the same period, reaching $1.6 trillion of emerging market bonds.

The outflows are due to several factors. The first, according to the IMF, is a decline in growth rates in these countries below their pre-crisis rates. While part of the slowdown reflects global conditions, there are also concerns about slowing productivity increases. China’s performance is one of the reasons for the lower forecast. Its GDP rose at a rate of 7.3% in the third quarter, below the 7.5% that the government wants to achieve.

Second, the prospect of higher interest rates in the U.S. following the winding down of the Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing has caused investors to reassess their asset allocations. The importance of “push” factors versus “pull” factors in driving capital flows has long been recognized, but their relative importance may have grown in recent years.   A recent paper by Shaghil Ahmed and Andrei Zlate (working paper here) provides evidence that the post-crisis response in net capital inflows, particularly portfolio flows, in a sample of emerging markets to the difference between domestic and U.S. monetary policy rates increased in the post-crisis period (2009:Q3 – 2013:Q2). They also looked at the impact of the U.S. large-scale asset purchases, and found that the such purchases had a statistically significant impact on gross capital inflows to these countries.

Part of the increased response in flows between advanced and emerging market economies may reflect the actions of large asset managers. In a paper in the latest BIS Quarterly Review, Ken Miyajima and Ilhyock Shim investigate the response of asset managers in advanced economies to benchmarks of emerging market portfolios. They point out that these managers often rely on performance measures of asset markets in emerging markets, which leads to an increased correlation of the assets under the managers’ control. Moreover, relatively small shifts in portfolio allocation by the asset managers can have a significant impact on asset markets in emerging markets. As a result, in recent years “…investor flows to asset managers and EME asset prices reinforced each other’s directional movements.” Investor flows to the emerging market economies are procyclical. If other factors do not provide a reason to reverse the outflows, they will continue.

The IMF’s Global Financial Stability Report also points out that: “An unintended consequence of…stronger financial links between advanced and emerging market economies is the increased synchronization of asset price movements and volatility.” One downside of increased financial globalization, therefore, is a decline in the ability to lower risk through geographic diversification. Similarly, any notion of “decoupling” emerging markets from the advanced economies is a “mirage,” according to Mexico’s central bank head Agustin Carstens. To achieve international financial stability will require monitoring capital flows across asset markets in different countries; volatility does not respect geographic borders.

China’s Place in the Global Economy

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Last week’s announcement that China’s GDP grew at an annualized rate of 7.4% in the first quarter of this year has stirred speculation about that country’s economy. Some are skeptical of the data, and point to other indicators that suggest slower growth.  Although a deceleration in growth is consistent with the plans of Chinese officials, policymakers may respond with some form of stimulus. Their decisions will affect not just the Chinese economy, but all those economies that deal with it.

The latest World Economic Outlook of the International Monetary Fund has a chapter on external conditions and growth in emerging market countries that discusses the impact of Chinese economic activity. The authors list several channels of transmission, including China’s role in the global supply chain, importing intermediate inputs from other Asian economies for processing into final products that are exported to advanced economies. Another contact takes place through China’s demand for commodities.  The author’s econometric analysis shows that a 1% rise in Chinese growth results in a 0.1% immediate rise in emerging market countries’ GDPs. There is a further positive effect over time as the terms of trade of commodity-exporters rise. Countries in Latin America are affected as well as in Asia.

These consequences largely reflect trade flows, although China’s FDI in other countries is acknowledged. But what would happen if China’s capital account regulations were relaxed? Financial flows conceivably could be quite significant. Chinese savers would seek to diversity their asset holdings, while foreigners would want to hold Chinese securities. Chinese banks could expand their customer base, while some Chinese firms might seek external financing of their capital projects. A study by John Hooley of the Bank of England offers an analysis of the possible increase in capital flows that projects a rise in the stock of China’s external assets and liabilities from about 5% of today’s world GDP to 30% of world GDP in 2025.

While the study points out that financial liberalization by China would allow more asset diversification, it also acknowledges that world financial markets would become vulnerable to a shock in China’s financial system.  Martin Wolf warns that the down-side risk is quite large. He cites price distortions and moral hazard as possible sources of instability, as well as regulators unfamiliar with global markets and an existing domestic credit boom. Similarly, Tahsin Saadi Sedik and Tao Sun of the IMF in an examination of the consequences of capital flow liberalization claim that deregulation of the Chinese capital account would result in higher GDP per capita and lower inflation in that country, but also higher equity returns and lower bank adequacy ratios, which could endanger financial stability.

There could be another result. A sizable Chinese presence in global asset markets would lead to even more scrutiny of Chinese monetary policy. A policy initiative undertaken in response to domestic conditions would affect financial flows elsewhere, and foreign policymakers most likely would voice their unhappiness with the impact on their economies. The Peoples Bank of China, accustomed to criticism from the U.S. over its handling of its exchange rate, might find the accusation of “currency wars” coming from other emerging market countries.  The price of a successful integration of Chinese financial markets with global finance will be calls for more sensitivity to the external impacts of domestic policies.

Tapering and the Emerging Markets

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The response of the exchange rates of emerging markets and their equity markets to the Federal Reserve’s “taper,” i.e., reduction in asset purchases, continues to draw comment (see, for example, here). Most analysts agree that these economies are in better shape to deal with capital outflows than they were in the past, and that the risk of another Asian-type crisis is relatively low. But that does not mean that their economies will react the way we expect.

Gavyn Davies of Fulcrum Asset Management, who has a blog at the Financial Times, has posted the transcript of a “debate” he organized with Maurice Obstfeld of UC-Berkeley, Alan M. Taylor of UC-Davis and Dominic Wilson, chief economist and co-head of Global Economics Research at Goldman Sachs, on the financial turbulence in the emerging markets. “Debate” is not the best word to describe the discussion, as there are many areas of agreement among the participants. Obstfeld points out that there are far fewer fixed exchange rate regimes in today’s emerging markets, and many of their monetary policymakers have adopted policy regimes of inflation targeting. Moreover, the accumulation of foreign exchange by the central banks leaves them in a much stronger position than they were in the 1990s. Taylor adds fiscal prudence and less public debt to the factors that make emerging markets much less risky.

But all the participants are concerned about the winding down of the credit booms that capital inflows fueled. Wilson worries about economies with current account deterioration, easy monetary policy, above-target inflation, weak linkages to the recovery in the developed markets and institutions of questionablestrength. He cites Turkey, India and Brazil as countries that meet these criteria. Similarly, Taylor lists countries with relatively rapid expansion in domestic credit over the 2002-2012 period, and Brazil and India appear vulnerable on these dimensions as well.

Another analysis of the determinants of international capital flows comes from Marcel Förster, Markus Jorra and Peter Tillmann of the University of Giessen. They estimate a dynamic hierarchical factor model of capital flows that distinguishes among a common global factor, a factor dependent on the type of capital inflow, a regional factor and a country-specific component. They report that the country component explains from 60 – 80% of the volatility in capital flows, and conclude that domestic policymakers have a large degree of influence over their economy’s response to capita flows.

But are “virtuous” policies always rewarded? Joshua Aizenman of the University of Southern California, Michael Hutchison of UC-Santa Cruz and Mahir Binici of the Central Bank of Turkey have a NBER paper that investigates the response in exchange rates, stock markets and credit default swap (CDS) spreads to announcements from Federal Reserve officials on tapering. They utilize daily data for 26 emerging markets during the period of November 27, 2012 to October 3, 2013. They looked at the response to statements from Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke regarding tapering, as well as his comments about the continuation of quantitative easing. They also looked at the impact of statements from Federal Reserve Governors and Federal Reserve Bank Presidents on these topics, as well as official Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statements.

Their results show that Bernanke’s comments on winding down asset purchases led to significant drops in stock markets and exchange rate depreciations, but had no significant impact on CDS spreads. There were no significant responses to statements from the other Fed officials. On the other hand, there were significant responses in exchange rates when Bernanke spoke about continuing quantitative easing, as well as to FOMC statements and announcements by the other policymakers.

The countries in the sample were then divided between those viewed as possessing “robust” fundamentals, with current account surpluses, large holdings of foreign exchange reserves and low debt, and those judged to be “fragile” due to their current account deficits, small reserve holdings and high debt. Bernanke’s tapering comments resulted in larger immediate depreciations in the countries with current account surpluses as oppose to those with deficits, more reserves and less debt.  Similarly, Bernanke’s statements led to increased CDS spreads in the countries with current account surpluses and large reserve holdings, while lowering equity prices in countries with low debt positions. The immediate impact of the news regarding tapering, therefore, seemed to be tilted against those with strong fundamentals.

The authors provide an explanation for their results: the robust countries had received larger financial flows previous to the perceived turnaround in Fed policy, and therefore were more vulnerable to the impact of tapering. Moreover, as the change in the Federal Reserve’s policy stance was assimilated over time, the exchange rates of the fragile nations responded, and by the end of the year had depreciated more than those of the more robust economies. Similarly, their CDS spreads rose more. By the end of 2013, Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Turkey had been identified as the “Fragile Five.”

What do these results tell us about the impact on emerging markets from future developments in the U.S. or other advanced economies? There may be a graduated response, as the relative standings of those nations that have attracted the most capital are reassessed. However, if capital outflows continue and are seen as including more than “hot money,” then the economic fundamentals of the emerging markets come to the fore. But financial markets follow their own logic and timing, and can defy attempts to foretell their next twists and turns.

Riding the Waves

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The volatility in emerging markets has abated a bit, but may resume in the fallout of the Russian takeover of the Crimea. The capital outflows and currency depreciations experienced in some emerging market nations have been attributed to their choice of policies. But their economic situations reflect the domestic impact of capital inflows as well as their macroeconomic policies.

 Fernanda Nechio of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, for example, shows that exchange rate depreciations of emerging markets are linked to their fiscal and current account balances, with larger depreciations occurring in those countries such as Brazil and India with deficits in both balances. Kristin Forbes of MIT’s Sloan School also draws attention to the connection between the extent of the currency depreciations and the corresponding current account deficits. Nechio and Forbes both advise policymakers in emerging markets to make sound policy choices to avoid further volatility.

Good advice! But Stijn Claessens of the IMF and Swati Ghosh of the World Bank have pointed out in the World Bank’s Dealing with the Challenges of Macro Financial Linkages in Emerging Markets that capital flows can exacerbate prevailing economic trends. Relatively large capital inflows to emerging markets (“surges”) tend to take the form of bank and portfolio debt, which contribute to increased domestic bank lending and domestic credit. Claessens and Ghosh write (p.108) that “…large inflows in net terms are the financial counterpart to the savings and investment decisions in the country and affect the exchange rate, inflation, and current account positions.” They also endanger the stability of the financial system as bank balance sheets expand and lending standards deteriorate. These financial flows contribute to increases in asset prices and further credit extension until some domestic or foreign shock leads to an economic and financial downturn.

Are the authorities helpless to do anything? Claessens and Ghosh list policies that may reduce macro vulnerability, which include exchange rate appreciation, monetary and fiscal policy tightening, and the use of capital controls. They also mention, as do the authors of the other chapters of the World Bank volume, the use of macro prudential policies (MaPPs) aimed at financial institutions and borrowers. But they admit that the evidence on the effectiveness of the MaPPs is limited.

Moreover, the macroeconomic policies they enumerate may not be sufficient to deal with the impact of capital inflows. Tightening monetary policy can draw more foreign capital. Fiscal policy is not a nimble policy lever, and usually operates with a lag

What about the use of flexible exchange rates as a buffer against foreign shocks? Emerging market policymakers have been reluctant to fully embrace flexible rates. More importantly, as pointed out here, it is not clear that flexible rates provide the protection that the theory of the “trilemma” suggests it does. Hélène Rey of the London Business School claimed last summer that there fluctuating exchange rates cannot insulate economics from global financial cycles in capital flows and credit growth. Macroprudential measures such as higher leverage ratios are needed, and the use of capital controls should be considered.

Last week we learned that capital flows to developing countries fell in February, with syndicated bank lending falling to its lowest level since 2005. This was followed by the news that domestic credit growth is falling in many emerging markets, including Brazil and Indonesia. The ensuing changes in fundamentals in these countries may or may not alleviate further depreciation pressures. But they will reflect the procyclical linkage of capital flows and domestic credit growth as much as wise policy choices. And there is no guarantee that the reversals will not overshoot and bring about a new set of troubles. The waves of capital can be as tricky to ride as are ocean waves.

Group Therapy

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Pop quiz:  which U.S. policymaker said last week: “We can’t solve everyone else’s problems anymore” in response to foreign criticism of U.S. handling of what issue?

a—Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, responding to criticism by foreign central bankers of the Fed’s tapering of its asset purchases;

b—Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, following denunciations of the refusal of the U.S. Congress to pass legislation that would enable IMF quota reform;

c—an anonymous White House aide, defending the Obama  administration’s  response to the turmoil in the Ukraine.

The correct response is c. But Ms. Yellen and Mr. Lew, who are attending the conference of G20 finance ministers and central bank heads in Sydney, might be forgiven if they held similar (but unspoken) sentiments.

The Federal Reserve has been criticized for not coordinating its policies with its peer institutions, particularly in those emerging markets that have had capital outflows and declines in equity market prices. But the critics have not spelled out precisely what they believe the Federal Reserve should do (or not do), given its assessment of the state of the U.S. economy. Domestic central banks respond to domestic conditions. In some cases, those conditions are linked to the global economy, and a central banker who ignored those linkages would only be postponing the implementation of stronger measures. But is that the case here?

The IMF came the closest to offering a specific criticism:

Advanced economies should avoid premature withdrawal of monetary accommodation as fiscal balances continue consolidating. Given still large output gaps, very low inflation, and ongoing fiscal consolidation, monetary policy should remain accommodative in advanced economies. There is scope for better cooperation on unwinding UMP, including through wider central bank discussions of exit plans.

Does anyone think that the Federal Reserve no longer intends to “remain accommodative”? Are more discussions the only missing element of the Federal Reserve’s plans? That would be surprising, since central bankers have many opportunities to speak to each other, and usually do.

The IMF did not let the emerging market countries off the hook:

In emerging market economies, credible macroeconomic policies and frameworks, alongside exchange rate flexibility, are critical to weather turbulence. Further monetary policy tightening in the context of strengthened policy frameworks is necessary where inflation is still relatively high or where policy credibility has come into question. Priority should also be given to shoring up fiscal policy credibility where it is lacking; subsequently buffers should be built to provide space for counter-cyclical policy action. Exchange rate flexibility should continue to facilitate external adjustment, particularly where currencies are overvalued, while FX intervention— where reserves are adequate—can be used to smooth excessive volatility or prevent financial disruption.

Critics are on firmer grounds when they criticize the U.S. for not passing the necessary legislation to change the IMF’s quota allocations. But perhaps they should not take their annoyance out on Mr. Lew. The U.S. Congress did not approve the needed measures for a number of reasons, none of them particularly compelling. Mr. Lew would be delighted to see the situation change, but that is unlikely to happen.

What, then, can be done at the G20 meeting? If allowing everyone to voice her or his frustrations with the U.S. serves some useful purpose, then all the air miles on the flights to Sydney will have been earned. Perhaps IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde can serve as mediator/therapist. But before everyone piles on, it may be worth reflecting that the Federal Reserve is not the only central bank with policy initiatives that may ripple across national borders.

Affairs, Domestic and Foreign

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Raghuram Rajan, ex- faculty member of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, ex-head of the research department of the IMF, and currently Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (its central bank), set off a storm of comment when he warned of a breakdown in the global coordination of monetary policy. Frustrated by the decline in the foreign exchange value of the rupee that followed the cutback in asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, Rajan claimed that the Federal Reserve was ignoring the impact of its policies on the rest of the world.  Does he have a valid cause for concern?

Quite a few folks have weighed in on this matter: see here, here, here, here, here and here. Rodrik and Subramanian make several interesting points. First, the Federal Reserve was criticized when it lowered rates, so complaints that it is now raising them are a bit hypocritical (but see here). Second, blaming the Fed for not being a team player as the emerging markets were when they lowered their rates in 2008-09 is not a valid comparison. The emerging markets lowered their rates then because it was in their interest to do so, not out of any sense of international solidarity. Third, their governments allowed short-term capital inflows to enter their economies; did they not realize that the day could come when these flows would reverse? Finally, their policymakers allowed the inflows to contribute to credit bubbles that resulted in inflation and current account deficits, which are significant drivers of the volatility.

Moreover, the Federal Reserve is constrained by law to promote maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates in the U.S., not the global community But couldn’t turmoil in the emerging markets threaten U.S. conditions? Robin Harding at the Financial Times thinks this is an unlikely scenario. He points to two channels of transmission between the U.S. and the countries that have shown the most turbulence: exports and financial markets. The emerging market nations that have witnessed the most volatility account for very small proportions of U.S. exports. (China, on the other hand, does claim 7.5% of our exports, but so far has not suffered any signs of distress (but see here).) In addition, financial flows might be affected, but to date these have resulted in lower interest rates in the U.S. due to a flight to safety. Previous shocks from the emerging markets pushed U.S. stock prices down, but these effects were short-lived. Therefore, Harding claims, “…it would have to become much more of a crisis…” to endanger the U.S. economy.

The problem with this assessment is that it assumes that we know the extent of our financial vulnerability to a decline in the fortunes of these economies. But one lesson of the 2007-09 global financial crisis is that there may be much we do not know about our financial structure. U.S.-based institutions can be vulnerable to shocks in ways that we do not recognize. Subprime mortgages were not themselves that significant a share of the liabilities of U.S. banks and shadow banks, but they were the foundation of a range of derivatives, etc., that took down the financial markets when these mortgages became toxic.

The threat of more declines in foreign asset prices does not mean that the Federal Reserve should retreat from its current policies. A situation with some interesting similarities took place in the early 1980s. U.S. banks, awash with recycled oil revenues, had lent extensively to countries in Latin America and elsewhere in the 1970s.  A debt crisis ensued after Paul Volcker and the Federal Reserve raised interest rates (see Chapter 4). Volcker recently reflected on these events in an interview with Martin Feldstein in the fall 2013 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives:

“What were you going to do? Were you going to conduct an easy-money policy and go back on all the policy you’d undertaken to try to save Mexico, which wouldn’t have saved Mexico anyway? We did save Mexico, but by other means.”

U.S. policymakers have always claimed (with some justification) that a healthy U.S. economy is the best remedy for a troubled world economy, and monetary officials will no doubt proceed as they think best. But we should take a look around before we proceed. The February ice underneath our feet may be a bit thinner than we realize.

Birds of a Feather

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Policy coordination on the international level is one of those ends that governments profess to aspire to achieve but only realize when there is a crisis that requires a global response.  There are many reasons why this happens, or rather, does not. But in one area—monetary policy—central bankers have in the past acted in concert, and their activities provide lessons for the conditions needed to bring about coordination in other policy spheres.

Jonathan D. Ostry and Atish R. Ghosh suggest several reasons for the lack of coordination.  First, policymakers may only focus on one goal at a time, and ignore intertemporal tradeoffs. Second, governments may not agree on the size of spillovers from national policies. Finally, those countries that do not participate in policy consultations do not have a chance to influence the policy decisions. Consequently, the policies that are adopted are not optimal from a global perspective.

All this was supposed to change when the G20 became the “premier forum for international economic co-operation.” The government leaders agreed to a Mutual Assessment Process, through which they would identify objectives for the global economy, the specific steps needed to attain them, and then monitor each other’s progress. How has that worked? Most observers agree: not so well. Different reasons are advanced for the lack of progress (see here and here and here), but the diversity of the members’ economic situations works against their ability to agree on what the common problems are and a joint response.

There is one area, however, where there has been evidence of communication and even coordination: monetary policy. What accounts for the difference?  The linkages of global financial institutions and markets complicate the formulation of domestic policies. Steve Kamin has examined the literature on financial globalization and monetary policy, and summarized the main findings. First, the short-term rates that policymakers use as targets are influenced by foreign conditions. Second, the long-term rates that affect spending are also affected by foreign factors. The “savings glut” of the last decade, for example, has been blamed for bringing down U.S. interest rates and fuelling the housing bubble. Third, the financial crises that monetary policymakers face have foreign dimensions. Capital flows exacerbate volatility in financial markets, and disrupt the operations of banks (see here). Therefore, central bankers can not ignore the foreign dimensions of their policies.

The actions of monetary policymakers during the global crisis are instructive. In October 2008, the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and several other central banks simultaneously announced that they were reducing their primary lending rates. The Federal Reserve established swap lines with fourteen other central banks, including those of Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, and South Korea.  The central banks used the dollars they borrowed from the Federal Reserve to lend to their own banks that needed to finance their dollar-denominated acquisitions. The Federal Reserve also lent to foreign owned financial institutions operating in the U.S.

While the extent of their cooperation in 2008-09 was unprecedented, it was not the first time that the heads of central banks operated in concert. There are several features of monetary policy that allow such collaboration. First, monetary policy is often delegated by governments to central bankers, who may have some degree of political independence and longer terms of office than most domestic politicians. This gives the central bankers more confidence when they deal with their counterparts at other central banks. Second, central banking has been viewed as a more technical policy area than fiscal policy and requires professional expertise. In addition, the benign economic conditions associated with the “Great Moderation” gave central bankers credibility with the public that manifested itself in the apotheosis of Alan Greenspan. Third, central bankers meet periodically at the Bank for International Settlements, and have a sense of how their counterparts view their economies and how they might respond to a shock. A prestigious group of economists have proposed that a group of central bankers of systemically significant banks meets under the auspices of the Committee on the Global Financial System of the BIS to discuss the implications of their policies for global financial stability.

All this can change, and already has to some extent. Monetary policy has become politicized in the U.S. and the Eurozone, and even Alan Greenspan’s halo has been tarnished. Policymakers from emerging markets were caught off-guard by the rise in U.S. interest rates last spring and argued for more monetary policy coordination.

Are there lessons for international coordination on other fronts? The conditions for formulating fiscal policy are very different. Fiscal policies are enacted by legislatures and executives, who are subject to domestic public opinion in democracies.  There is little consensus in the public arena on whether fiscal policy is effective, which can lead to stalemates. Finally, there is no common meeting place for fiscal policymakers except at the G20 summits, where there is less discussion and more posturing in front of the press.

The G20 governments enacted fiscal stimulus policies at the time of the crisis. Since then, the U.S. has been unable to fashion a coherent policy plan, much less coordinate one with foreign governments. The Europeans are mired in their debt crisis, and the G20 meetings have stalled. It is difficult to see how these countries could act together even in the event of another global crisis. Like St. Augustine’s wish for chastity, governments may want to coordinate their policies—but not quite yet.