Key Trends in Globalisation

Trump's consequences for the US economy explained in 3 charts

There has been much discussion on the likely effect of Trump on the US economy. But some of this discussion fails to distinguish clearly between short term and long term effects of Trump. This can lead to wrong interpretations of events and trends as they unfold. The aim of this article is therefore to set out the fundamental parameters of the US economic situation as it confronts Trump. This can be clearly shown in three charts showing the fundamental features of the US economy which are given below. These show:

• There should be a short-term acceleration of growth during the early period of the Trump presidency, for the simple statistical reason that in 2016 the US economy was growing significantly below its long-term average. A move of the US economy up towards its long-term average growth rate will therefore create the illusion that the US economy is improving during the early period of Trump’s administration – when it is in reality a predictable statistical effect.
• Trump, however, cannot accelerate the long-term US growth rate without fundamental changes in the US economy which are very unlikely for reasons analysed below. Therefore, over the long-term Trump will not accelerate US economic growth.

Analysing these most fundamental trends in the US economy also identifies which key US data must be watched carefully to assess the success or failure of Trump’s economic policy in both the short and long term.

The long-term slowing of the US economy

To start with the most fundamental trend of US long term growth, Figure 1 shows US annual average GDP growth using a 20-year moving average to remove all purely short term fluctuations due to business cycles. This data shows clearly the most profound trend in US growth is a half century long economic slowing – the peaks of US growth progressively falling from 4.9% in 1969, to 4.1% in 1978, to 3.5% in 2003, to 2.3% by the latest data for the 3^rd quarter of 2016.

Figure 1

 

 The cyclical situation of the US economy

Turning to short term developments, the trend of US growth shown in Figure 1 is a long-term average. This necessarily means that short term economic growth is sometimes above and sometimes below this average. Figure 2 therefore shows the short-term trend in US growth, the economy’s year by year growth rate, compared to the long-term average.

It may be seen from Figure 2 that the US economic growth in the year to the 3^rd quarter of 2016 was only 1.7%. That is, the US economy in the recent period leading up to Trump’s election was growing at significantly below its long-term trend. For this reason, purely for statistical reasons, it is probable that the US economy may accelerate in the short term.

As this would coincide with the initial period of Trump’s presidency this would lead to the claim ‘Trump is improving the US economy’. But this is false, such acceleration would be expected purely for statistical reasons.

Figure 2

 

The determinants of US growth

Finally, if the reasons for the US long term economic slowdown are analysed these are simple. The most fundamental of all features of the US economy is that it is a capitalist economy. This means when there is a high rate of capital accumulation the US economy grows rapidly, when there is a low rate of capital accumulation the US grows slowly.

In terms of economic statistics net capital accumulation is equal to net savings. Figure 3 therefore shows the long-term trend in the US savings rate/capital accumulation rate since 1929. The curve of long term development of the US economy can be seen to be clear:

• During the crisis creating the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929-33 US capital accumulation was negative – that is the US economy was creating no capital. This necessarily produced a deep crisis of the US economy. After this the rate of US savings/capital creation rose, with a powerful acceleration during World War II, to reach a long-term peak as a percentage of the economy in 1965.
• After 1965 US net savings/capital creation steadily fell as a percentage of GDP until it once again became negative during the ‘Great Recession’ in 2008-2009. This declining trend of US capital creation of course explains the long-term growth slowdown that was shown in Figure 1.

This trend therefore shows the fundamental issue confronting Trump which he would have to overcome to accelerate the long-term growth of the US economy. He would have to increase the percentage of capital creation in the US economy. Without this, while a short-term speed up in the US economy is to be expected for the statistical reasons given earlier, no long term acceleration of US economic growth will take place. Without such a sharp increase in the level of capital accumulation claims by Trump that he will accelerate the US rate of growth are purely ‘hot air’.

Figure 3

 

Summary

It is clear that the first effect of Trump’s policies will not be to increase but to reduce US savings/capital accumulation. This is due to the fact that an economy’s savings are not only household savings but company savings plus household savings plus and government savings – government savings in most economies being negative because the government runs a budget deficit. Trump has announced policies that will clearly increase the US budget deficit – tax cuts focussed on the rich and increased military spending. This increased budget deficit will necessarily reduce the US savings level.

In the purely short term Trump could lessen the effect of low US savings/capital creation by borrowing from abroad. But historical experience shows that over the medium/long term in major economies it is domestic capital creation which is decisive. Therefore, Trump has so far announced no policies which will increase the long-term US growth rate. Therefore, in summary:

• A short-term speed up of the US economy is likely for the statistical reasons already given – but does not indicate any increase in long term economic growth.
• Trump has no put forward policies that will accelerate US long term economic growth.

Finally, these trends show which data must be closely watched to see success or failure in Trumps economic policies. The short term shifts in the growth rate must not be seen in themselves but compared to the long term trend of US growth: the key variable for judging long term US growth is whether the level of capital formation in the US economy is rising or falling.

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This article was originally published in Chinese by New Finance.

The world will be listening to Xi Jinping at Davos

Xi Jinping is the first Chinese president to speak at the Davos World Economic Forum. This visit has attracted even greater international media attention than the normally high levels of interest in a trip by China's leader. As the Financial Times chief foreign affairs columnist Gideon Rachman put it, "The big star of this year's forum is certain to be Xi Jinping."

The reason for this is well understood. China's unequivocal support for open economies and globalization is now clearly in contrast to the protectionism embraced by U.S. President-elect Trump and that was manifested on a smaller scale in the U.K. Brexit referendum.

In terms of declared positions on globalisation, a definitive turning point has already been made. Every U.S. president since World War II has at least verbally committed to free trade and globalisation. Trump explicitly broke with this historical U.S. position with threats to impose a 35 percent tariff on Mexico, a 45 percent tariff on China, to impose a U.S. "border tax", to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), by his pressure for U.S. companies not to invest in Mexico despite it being a NAFTA partner and by his clear overall policy statements. In parallel, while the reality of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) was not a move for freer trade - being in reality an anti-China bloc - nevertheless its unilateral abandonment by Trump made the U.S. appear an unreliable negotiating partner.

Whatever happens in the future, there can never again be 100 percent certainty that the U.S. remains committed to globalisation. This fundamental pillar on which the post-World War II global order was built is no longer solid. It is widely understood that of the world's two largest economies, only China remains unequivocally committed to globalisation.

This directly and powerfully affects other countries in addition to China - hence the wide international interest in Xi Jinping's Davos visit. Other countries well understand, both factually and theoretically, the decisive importance of the international trade and globalisation.

Factually, numerous studies demonstrate the positive correlation of an economy's international openness and its development speed. Growing internationalisation by almost all countries was a decisive trend during the long period of relative global international economic stability and growth after World War II - a marked contrast to 1929-39 global economic fragmentation, marked by the infamous U.S. Smoot-Hawley protectionist tariff, which led to the greatest economic crisis in modern history.

Clear theoretical understanding of economic openness's advantages has existed for over two hundred years. The first sentence of the founding work of modern economics, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, is, "The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour… have been the effect of the division of labour." But division of labour in a modern economy has reached a point where it is necessarily international in scale. International supply chains, which alone ensure the cost efficiency of modern production, flow from the reality that different countries have different advantages in different parts of production. Attempts to create self-contained national economies necessarily make economies less efficient. Therefore, every strategy of "import substitution" or attempt to create an efficient national self-contained economy necessarily fails.

U.S. protectionism's negative effects, with its inevitable international reciprocal retaliation, would hit even the U.S., the world's largest economy - increasing prices of imported goods for consumers and costs for U.S. producers while restricting export markets. Even for the U.S., three quarters of the world market in economic terms and 95 percent of the world's customers in population terms lie outside its borders. A protectionist U.S. economy cannot match the advantages of orientation to a global economy.

But for Germany, 95 percent of its potential market is outside its borders, for Brazil 97 percent, for Australia 98 percent, for Thailand over 99 percent. Protectionism would be more damaging for them than the U.S. Such countries therefore applaud Xi Jinping's unequivocal defence of globalisation - not because of deference to China, but out of national self-interest because globalisation really is "win-win."

Sometimes in the media there is loose talk of a "rise of protectionism and populism." But this imprecise expression conceals a precise reality. In some European countries, there certainly is an increase in support for protectionist populist parties - for example, in France Marine Le Pen's National Front or the Alternative in Germany. But these are minority parties who are not in power and who in most cases have no realistic prospect whatsoever of forming governments. Only in the Anglo-Saxon economies have protectionist forces actually come to office or been able to determine government policy.

The overwhelming majority of countries, including traditionally firm U.S. allies such as Germany or Australia, have expressed opposition to Trump's protectionist policies. When Germany's Chancellor Merkel recently said, "We see protectionist tendencies," she was naturally discreet enough not to mention the U.S. But most people were well aware that the U.S. was included in the countries she was speaking of. A large majority of other countries listening will strongly agree either publicly or silently with Xi Jinping's clear statements in support of open economies and globalisation at Davos.

Maintaining an internationally open economy is vital not only for governments but for the world's population. Globalisation has brought immense benefits to the majority of the world's people, strongly confirming economic theory. Certainly, socialist countries were most able to take advantage of globalisation's benefits. The world's four fastest growing economies in the last 30 years have been socialist - China, Laos and Vietnam, together with a Cambodia whose economic policies are decisively influenced by China. China experienced the world's most rapid rise in living standards. Eighty-three percent of the people in the world lifted out of internationally defined poverty were in China, and a further 2 percent were in Vietnam - only 15 percent were in capitalist countries.

But while socialist countries made the most efficient use of globalisation, other countries also strongly benefitted. India under Modi has consciously moved closer to China's economic model, and India is now the world's other major rapidly growing economy. Several African countries, basing themselves on globalisation, have achieved growth rates of 6-8 percent a year.

Certainly the political crisis in the Anglo-Saxon countries, which has produced support for the protectionist dead ends, was created by a failure to improve their population's living standards. U.S. median household incomes are lower than 16 years ago, U.S. inequality has soared. In the U.K., real incomes in the last eight years experienced their most prolonged decline for a century. But this was not inherent in globalisation, as demonstrated by the dramatic improvements achieved by most countries, but a result of the specifically neo-liberal paths launched by Reagan and Thatcher. It is for this reason, not globalisation, that a protectionist political dead end has become strongest in the Anglo-Saxon economies.

China's support of globalisation, symbolised in Xi Jinping's Davos visit, corresponds to China's national self-interest. But it also corresponds to the national self-interest of other countries and peoples. Mutual self-interest is the firmest of all foundations for cooperation.
It is for this reason Xi Jinping's visit to Davos has attracted such intense international interest.

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This article originally appeared at China.org.cn.