By Rich Miller and Simon Kennedy
Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama and fellow Group of 20 leaders are trying to end what Obama adviser Lawrence Summers has called the “financial balance of terror.”
World leaders, meeting in Pittsburgh last week, adopted a framework for more durable economic growth as they sought to prevent a replay of the worst crisis since the Great Depression. They also acknowledged the growing clout of China and other emerging economies by giving them a bigger voice in decision- making.
The aim is to reduce U.S. dependence on overseas capital to finance consumption, while cutting the reliance of China and other creditor nations on American consumers to buy their goods. Summers, head of Obama’s National Economic Council, has singled out the current arrangement as a risk to prosperity since it leaves each major economy a hostage of the other’s policies. “Because our global economy is now fundamentally interconnected, we need to act together to make sure our recovery creates new jobs and industries,” Obama told reporters in Pittsburgh Sept. 25 after hosting his first economic summit.
To help ensure that happens, G-20 countries agreed to give the 186-member International Monetary Fund a role assessing their efforts. The oversight function will be among the topics discussed by policy makers as they head this week to Istanbul for the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank.
Slower Growth
After expanding at a 4.6 percent annual pace in the five years through 2008, the world economy might be in for a spell of slower growth unless G-20 countries follow complementary policies, said Edwin Truman, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
The U.S. is counting on the crisis and its aftermath to convince countries like China that it’s in their own interest to shift away from exports toward domestic demand as Americans save more and spend less, Truman said. The U.S. savings rate rose to a 14-year high of 6 percent in May before falling to 4.2 percent in July.
“U.S. consumption is all but certain to be very stagnant for the next few years,” said Desmond Lachman, a former IMF official who’s now at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “You’ve got to find other sources of demand.”
In the meantime, G-20 leaders acknowledged the recovery remains dependent on emergency government measures, and they pledged to avoid pulling back until the time is right. “We will avoid any premature withdrawal of stimulus,” their communiqué said.
Stocks Decline
That promise may encourage investors to take on more risk after signs of economic weakness prompted the biggest weekly declines in European and U.S. stocks since July, said Sophia Drossos, co-head for global foreign exchange strategy at Morgan Stanley in New York.
“The G-20 outcome could lead to a reversal of the selloff,” she said.
Demand for U.S. durable goods unexpectedly fell in August and loans to households and companies in Europe grew at the slowest pace on record, reports showed last week.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has dropped 2.2 percent since Sept. 18, and Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index slipped 2.4 percent in the same period.
Developing-nation equities suffered their steepest weekly decline in more than two months last week, with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index ending 1.2 percent lower.
Lopsided Trade Flows
G-20 leaders pledged to correct the lopsided flows of trade and investment blamed for contributing to the crisis: U.S. consumers borrowed money to finance purchases of Asian-made cars and flat-screen TVs. Asian exporters, meanwhile, invested their surplus cash in U.S. Treasury notes, pushing down borrowing costs and further fueling the credit binge.
Some economists cast doubt on the pledges by the G-20, since no sanctions will be used to enforce them and a similar push in 2006 by the IMF petered out.
“Unless the major surplus and deficit economies actually decide that they really want to go down this route, it’s hard to imagine anything will happen,” said Kenneth Rogoff, a former IMF chief economist who now teaches at Harvard University.
Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao and European leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel face plenty of hurdles as they seek to place the world economy on a more stable footing.
The U.S. must cut a $1.6 trillion federal budget deficit, while China contends with a record $2.1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves representing years of accumulated trade surpluses.
Central Bankers
Central bankers, who did not attend the summit, may be wary of any suggestion that they sacrifice their independence in the name of worldwide coordination. And global institutions such as the IMF and the Basel, Switzerland-based Financial Stability Board may lack the horsepower to carry out the added responsibilities they’re being given. Chinese officials said they recognize that the country must shift its economic priorities.
“China also understands that its economic-growth model has some flaws,” Ma Xin, director-general of international cooperation at the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top planning agency, said in Pittsburgh.
Change may take time, Ma suggested. He said that his nation’s “low” consumer spending is something that has “accumulated over many years and it is a structural problem.”
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pointed to the increase in the U.S. savings rate as an “encouraging sign.”
‘Measured Optimism’
After “a long period of time living beyond our means, you see people already changing behavior,” the Treasury chief said in Pittsburgh. “That’s one reason why we can stand here today and express some measured optimism about our capacity to put in place a more sustainable recovery.”
There are other signs that imbalances are shrinking. The U.S. current-account deficit narrowed in the second quarter to $98.8 billion, the least since 2001. Credit Suisse AG predicts Chinese imports may rise 30 percent to $313 billion in the fourth quarter as the government’s stimulus program spurs domestic demand.
“While the global rebalancing to date has been significant and broad-based, it remains to be seen whether this process will continue,” said Bruce Kasman, chief economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York.
Giving emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil a greater stake in global decision-making may ensure that it does.
Supplants G-8
The broader G-20 will supplant the Group of 8, a club of the most highly developed nations plus Russia, as the guardian of the global economy after last week’s summit. The G-20 accounts for about 85 percent of global gross domestic product. The risk is that the larger group will find it more difficult to make decisions, said Tim Adams, who served as the U.S. Treasury’s top international official in the administration of George W. Bush.
“The bigger the grouping, the harder it is to get consensus,” said Adams, managing director of the Lindsey Group, a Washington-based economic advisory firm. “You can’t have the agenda taken over by the favorite hobby horses of each country.”
The third summit of G-20 leaders in the past year also plotted a road map for revamping the banking industry after the two previous meetings, in Washington and London, focused on fighting market turmoil and reversing the spiral into recession.
Deferred Bonuses
Leaders agreed that banks must avoid “multiyear guaranteed bonuses” and that a “significant portion of variable compensation” must be deferred, paid in stock, tied to performance and subjected to clawbacks if earnings flop. They stopped short of endorsing a French proposal to introduce specific caps on pay.
Awards must also be curbed if they are “inconsistent with the maintenance of a sound capital base,” the G-20 said. Regulators should be allowed to modify the compensation practices of key firms. Banks will also have to increase the quality and quantity of capital they hold by the end of 2012. The regulatory overhaul is “for real, but there will be plenty of argument over the detail of how it’s done,” Leon Brittan, vice chairman of UBS Investment Bank and former European Union trade commissioner, told Bloomberg Television.
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