Inflation staying low over next few years

Business Times - 11 Aug 2010
MONEY MATTERS

By SHANE OLIVER
FEARS about inflation and deflation have fluctuated wildly in recent times. In late 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis, the big worry was a 'debt deflation spiral' dragging the world into depression. Six months ago, many were worried about inflation.
Global growth was recovering and fears abounded that major developed countries would print money to get out of their public debt problems. However, in the last few months, fears of deflation have regained the upper hand, on the back of still falling inflation rates and worries about a return to global recession.
Our base case is ongoing low inflation in major countries over the next few years, but the risks are skewed to deflation rather than accelerating inflation. But what is deflation? Why worry about it? Why is it more of a risk than a surge in inflation? And what would deflation mean for investors?
Deflation refers to persistent and generalised falls in prices. It used to be common, but with the advent of paper currencies not backed by gold and macro stabilisation policies, it became less common last century.
Nevertheless, there was a bout of deflation associated with the Great Depression of the 1930s. Japan has also experienced deflation since the 1990s.
Most people would see falling prices as a good thing because it means that their income and assets will buy more. Indeed there have been periods of 'good deflation'.
For example, in the period 1870-1895 in the US, deflation occurred against a background of strong economic growth, reflecting rapid productivity growth and technological innovation. Falling prices for electronic goods are a modern-day example of good deflation.
However, there can also be 'bad deflation', when falling prices are associated with falling wages, rising unemployment and falling asset prices.
For example, in the 1930s and more recently in Japan, deflation reflected economic collapse and rising unemployment made worse by a combination of high debt levels and falling asset prices. What's more, falling prices can cause people to delay spending, which in turn weakens economic activity.
In the current environment, deflation could cause serious problems because household debt and/or public debt levels are high in many major countries. A swing into sustained deflation would increase the real value of debt at the same time that asset prices would be falling and nominal incomes and government revenue would be weakening. If individuals or governments attempt to reduce their debt burden by cutting spending and selling assets, the risk is a 'debt deflation' spiral may take hold.
The standard arguments of those fearing a surge in inflation are that central banks have been printing money that will drive inflation up and governments will inflate their way out of high public debt levels.
More recently, some fret that the adverse weather-related 80 per cent or so rise in world wheat prices in the past two months signals a new bout of inflation boosting food price surges.
However, there are several reasons not to be too concerned by either of these. First, while quantitative easing has boosted narrow money supply measures such as cash and bank reserves, until this flows on to increased credit and spending increases to levels so that the spare capacity caused by the recession is all used up, there will be no threat to inflation. In fact, there has been no increase in credit growth and excess capacity remains huge.
Second, while it's easy to say 'governments will just inflate their way out of their public debt problems like they did post World War Two', this is now a lot harder to accomplish because it is central banks that control the money printing presses and in most major countries these days, they are independent of governments and firmly focused on keeping inflation in low single digits. Reversing central bank independence and inflation targeting will take a lot to change - and so far there is no sign of it.
Finally, while the surge in the wheat prices may boost food prices in the short term, weather-related surges and slumps in food prices are nothing new and usually give way to a reversal in prices six to 12 months down the track as the weather returns to normal and supply responds. So far, the surge in wheat prices doesn't appear to have led to a big flow on to other agricultural prices.
With underlying inflation rates now below one per cent in the US, Europe and Japan and headline inflation rates falling again, after a brief bounce on the back of the rebound in oil prices, it is little wonder that deflation worries have escalated. The key to the inflation outlook is capacity utilisation. The continuing downtrend in underlying inflation rates essentially reflects the normal lagged response to the global recession. This is because the recession led to global spare capacity which still hasn't been used up. It is readily evident in the 10 per cent or so unemployment rates in the US and the eurozone and in measures of business capacity utilisation.
A measure of business capacity utilisation averaged across the US, Europe and Japan fell well below normal levels during the 2008-09 recession. Historically, as long as it is below normal levels, inflation has continued to fall or remained weak.
While capacity utilisation has recently improved, it has only increased to levels associated with the early 1980s and early 2000s recessions. Levels that still saw inflation fall. Now with global growth slowing, it will take even longer to get back to normal levels of capacity utilisation, so spare capacity will be with us for some years to come, implying ongoing downward pressure on consumer prices.
So the bottom line is that as long as the recovery in major developed countries remains slow and excess capacity both in industry and labour markets remains, then inflation will likely fall. If the major economies return to recession, then the risk of deflation will escalate.
The risk of deflation varies between regions. Japan is already in deflation. The risk is highest in Europe because the recent fiscal tightening there and the European Central Bank's hard-line approach to monetary policy imply a greater risk of a faltering European economic recovery.
In contrast, countries in the Asia-Pacific region have had stronger economic recoveries, have less spare capacity and have higher inflation rates to begin with - implying a greater buffer against deflation - so the risk of deflation is much less.
Deflation is also less of a risk in Australia as there is less spare capacity, unemployment is low and a range of factors including increases in utility charges, health costs, rents and local government rates are boosting common perceptions of the cost of living. But global deflationary forces will nevertheless have a dampening impact on the local inflation rate via lower import prices, particularly if the Australian dollar remains strong.
While the risks of deflation exceed those of higher inflation, a sustained bout of Japanese-style deflation is unlikely.
· First, while goods price inflation may fall, services price inflation is relatively resilient because it has a higher wage element and wages are often sticky.
· Second, central banks including the US Federal Reserve are likely to step up the pace of quantitative easing if the risk of deflation increases. This is likely to include more aggressive buying of government bonds.
· Third, while comparisons with the US today and Japan over the past twenty years are common, there are big differences. In particular, the US has moved more quickly than Japan to stimulate its economy and the US corporate sector today is in good shape, unlike the Japanese corporate sector of the 1990s, so there is less pressure to sell assets and cut business investment.
As a general rule deflation would favour government bonds and cash over equities, property and corporate bonds for investors and defensive shares with good pricing power, such as utility stocks.
Fortunately with share market earnings yields, commercial property yields and corporate bond yields now well above government bond yields, it could be argued that the risk of deflation is partly factored into these assets.
While deflation is not our base case, the significant risk of its occurrence in major developed countries implies interest rates will be maintained at low levels well into next year and bond yields will likely remain low despite worries about high public debt levels.
Our base case is that inflation will remain low as more aggressive quantitative easing and sticky services prices will prevent an outbreak of sustained deflation.
However, with global spare capacity remaining high, at this stage the risks are still skewed towards deflation rather than a surge in inflation. This in turn means it is still too early to get particularly bearish on government bonds.
The writer is head of investment strategy and chief economist, AMP Capital Investors