The Labour Party wants the RBNZ to target
unemployment in addition to inflation. No one likes unemployment, but this does
not make it a good policy change. It has been used before and failed
everywhere.
Most probably, the policy meant to target
the unemployment rate in the short-run (over the business cycle or maybe over
the election cycle).[1]
A reduction of the short-run unemployment rate below the Natural Rate of
Unemployment (NRU) requires the RBNZ to generate higher inflation. According to
the Phillips curve, there is a negative relationship between wage inflation and
unemployment. The celebrated Phillips curve was first introduced by a Kiwi, Bill
Phillips in 1958.
Politicians liked that relationship because
it meant that they could trade-off more inflation for lower unemployment.
Unfortunately, it is not that simple. It is a textbook economics that the
Phillips curve shifts up and down every time the expectations about the
inflation rate change. And, what matters for work is the real wage rate – the
wage adjusted for inflation – not the nominal wage; in other words, the
purchasing power of the money wage.
The unemployment rate changes in the short
run: (1) because firms hire labour as long as the real wage paid to workers is
below labour productivity (the marginal productivity of labour); stop hiring
when the real wage rate is equal to
labour productivity; and layoff labour when real wages increase above labour
productivity. And, (2) because workers accept job offers when the real wage
rate is higher than the reservation
wage, and don’t when it is lower (here). The
reservation wage depends on the generosity of unemployment and other benefits.
The RBNZ comes into the picture because it can
affect real wages via expected inflation. Workers and employers take this
expected inflation rate to calculate the purchasing power of the offer (i.e.,
the real wage).
This policy will not work according to the
traditional Phillips curve because the relationship between inflation (money
wages) and unemployment is unstable, especially in New Zealand because the RBNZ
has successfully removed the trend from inflation (stationary). The plot (RBNZ data) shows no negative relationship to be
exploited.
The relationship between inflation and
unemployment changes overtime. It has been observed to be positive, or even
zero. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the RBNZ can reduce unemployment in
the short run by increasing inflation; quite the opposite could happen. The
U.S. and most of the industrial nations followed such policy before and those
of who remember the 1970s and the 1980s must remember the double digit
inflation rate and the devastation that followed.
So how will Labour design the new PTA policy?
There will be no inflation target as we
know it today because they have to inflate the economy to reduce unemployment.
First, how? They either reduce the interest
rate, perhaps making it negative as other central banks have done. Or, use
quantitative easing, i.e., pump more money into the system by buying
securities. Here
is the recent IMF view on the effect of negative interest rate on the
banking system and financial stability.
I would add that inflating the economy would
impact the housing market quite considerably. More money, more inflation, more
spending and more demand for housing. That would make the job of the new
governor very difficult because the RBNZ also regulates the financial system
and formally cares about stabilizing housing prices.
Second, by how much they have to increase
inflation, and could they? It will have to be a lot given that monetary
conditions defined by the current exchange rate and credit restrictions seem
tight.
That said, it might be worse if Labour is
thinking about the long-run unemployment. In this case they have an old and a
dead idea. The government must come up with an estimate of something called the
Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU) to replace the
current inflation target. It means a particular inflation rate (not a
range and not any number) that does not accelerate and consistent with the
long-run unemployment rate. This is not economics, but rather alchemy. If there
is no trade-off between inflation and unemployment in the long run, i.e., a
vertical Phillips curve, then there is no such an inflation rate because the
vertical Phillips curve implies that any inflation rate is consistent
with long-run unemployment. The NRU is not the same thing as the NAIRU. The former
is determined in the labour market, not by monetary conditions while the latter
is about an unstable relationship between inflation and the unemployment. Most
people agree that there is no trade-off in the long run. If the policy is indeed
about the long-run, not about the short run then we know it won’t work.
The NRU is unknown and the estimates are
highly uncertain. So whatever you want to call the long-run unemployment rate,
what is that number? A few weeks ago the chief economist of the RBNZ John
McDermott gave a speech, where he said that they are looking for the starts,
among them I assume is U* - the long-run unemployment rate. No one knows for
sure what that number is.
Also, the economic motivation behind this
policy is unclear. The Labour Party must
have been advised that the relationship between inflation and unemployment is
unstable, which is especially true in New Zealand. Also history shows that it
never worked, because it generated persistent inflation with no reduction in
unemployment, and took considerable efforts and costs to undo. In fact our
labour indicators are reasonable OECD.
Because the NRU is determined in the labour
market and not by the RBNZ. Politicians must look at labor market policies that
encourage work, reduce benefits, increase training and up-skilling, increase
matching efficiency, help small businesses, and increase foreign direct
investments etc. because monetary policy cannot deliver lower unemployment. In
fact the proposed policy may increase volatility and generate higher inflation
only.
[1] Economists know that
monetary policy cannot change the Natural Rate of Unemployment. Milton Friedman explained 50 years ago.
No new evidence suggests otherwise.
