Why negative interest rates sometimes succeed
http://news1.kr/articles/?2767082
"그래도 (-) 금리는 성공한다…부작용 작고 관리가능"
제네바 리포트, 2012년 이후 도입국 실익 분석
(서울=뉴스1) 신기림 기자 | 2016-09-06 10:59:50 송고
©AFP= News1
유럽중앙은행(ECB)과 일본은행이 마이너스 금리 정책의 딜레마에 더욱 깊이 빠져 들었다. 구로다 하루히코 일본은행 총재는 지난 3년 반 동안의 정책을 총괄검증하는 이달 회의를 2주 앞두고 마이너스 금리의 부작용을 처음으로 언급했다.
월스트리트저널(WSJ)은 구로다 총재의 발언에 '일말의 회한'이 가미됐다고 평가했다. 오는 8일 정책회의를 앞둔 ECB 역시 수익성 악화에 직면한 뱅커들의 불만을 단번에 해소하기 힘든 모양새다. 하지만 부진한 경제 회복세를 끌어 올리기 위해 다수의 저명한 경제학자들은 금리를 더 낮출 것을 제안했다.
파이낸셜타임스(FT)는 5일(현지시간) '마이너스 금리가 언젠가 성공하는 이유' 제하의 기사를 통해 더 깊은 마이너스 금리를 도입할 것을 촉구한 경제학자들의 보고서 내용을 전했다.
통화뱅킹국제연구센터와 경제정책연구센터가 지난주 공개한 공동 보고서는 '금리가 제로(0) 밑으로 더 떨어지고 (중앙은행의) 자산 매입도 확충되어야 한다'는 결론을 내렸다.
'제네바 리포트'라는 이름으로 유명한 이 보고서를 작성한 4명의 수석 이코노미스트들은 "부작용은 관리 가능할뿐만 아니라 소심함을 정당화할 만한 강도도 아니다"라고 강조했다.
물론, 개별 경제의 특성에 따라 마이너스 금리 정책의 효과는 엇갈린다. 은행의 자금조달 구조, 개인 연금의 보급정도, 통화의 체력, 현금 대안의 사용 정도 등 변수들이 특히 중요하다.
이러한 변수를 고려해 보고서는 덴마크, 유로존, 스위스, 스웨덴, 불가리아, 일본, 헝가리 등 지난 2012년 이후 마이너스 금리 정책실험을 진행중인 7개 경제의 차이와 함께 긍정적 여파를 설명했다.
우선 덴마크의 경우 일부 주택소유자들은 매달 모기지(주택담보대출)에 대해 이자를 내는 것이 아니라 받고 있다. 스웨덴에서는 마이너스 금리로 자국 통화 크로나가 약세를 보였지만 수출 경쟁력을 높이는 효과를 냈다.
특히 마이너스 금리는 덴마크와 스웨덴에서 통화 약세를 일으켜 수입 물가와 수출 수요를 높였다. 하지만, 일본에서는 반대 효과를 냈다. 엔화가 계속해서 안전자산으로 평가되면서 마이너스 금리에도 불구하고 더 많은 외국인들이 엔화를 찾았다.
보고서는 마이너스 금리의 성패를 좌우할 가장 큰 요인으로 현찰을 꼽았다. 현금 접근성이 유지된다면 사람들은 마이너스 금리를 회피할 수 있고 중앙은행의 금리 인하 범위를 제한한다고 보고서는 설명했다. 마이너스 금리가 상대적으로 성공적으로 정착된 경제로 평가된 스웨덴의 경우 다른 국가들에 비해 현금 없는 사회에 가장 근접해 있다.
보고서는 '경제가 진화할 수록 마이너스 금리의 제약들도 점차 사라질 수 있다'고 전망했다. 경제학자들은 보고서에서 "언젠가 현금없는 경제권에서 살 지도 모른다"며 "현금이 존재하지 않으면 중앙은행들은 침체에서 벗어나기 위해 회복을 촉발할 마이너스 금리를 필요한 만큼 낮출 수 있다"고 예상했다.
보고서 원문 싸이트 :
http://voxeu.org/content/what-else-can-central-banks-do
보고서 pdf 원문 :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7RFj9-C7jwdSEhONmE5MFBCcnc/view
http://www.wsj.com/articles/kuroda-rules-out-stimulus-reduction-1473047549
Bank of Japan’s Kuroda Sees the Other Side of Negative Rates
Central bank governor signals cautious approach to further reductions
By TAKASHI NAKAMICHI and MEGUMI FUJIKAWA
Updated Sept. 5, 2016 5:58 a.m. ET
TOKYO—Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda on Monday acknowledged the downsides of his negative-interest-rate policy, suggesting caution about further reductions.
Coming amid a global debate about the efficacy of extreme monetary easing, Mr. Kuroda’s unusual emphasis on the potential damage from negative rates pointed to a growing sense even among backers that easing can go too far.
The BOJ governor, speaking at a seminar in Tokyo, said negative rates particularly hit the profit of financial institutions, while low long-term yields hurt some other businesses by forcing them to put aside more money for long-term pension obligations.
The central bank must consider “that such developments can affect people’s confidence by causing concerns over the sustainability of the financial function in a broad sense, thereby negatively affecting economic activity,” Mr. Kuroda said.
The yen rose after the speech as investors dialed back expectations for further monetary easing. The yen was trading at 103.38 to the dollar late Monday in Tokyo, compared with 103.96 yen to the dollar just before the speech.
In February, the BOJ began applying a rate of minus 0.1% on certain deposits held by commercial banks after the BOJ’s purchases of Japanese government bonds—its main tool to fight deflation—began to run out of room. Yields on government bonds of up to 40 years fell sharply in the following months.
But capital investment and consumer spending failed to take off. Core consumer prices, including energy, fell for the fifth straight month in July, according to government data. And leading bankers criticized the policy, saying it would hit their profit, make lending harder and add to uncertainty—an argument that Mr. Kuroda effectively conceded on Monday.
The speech suggested he is “basically cautious” about lowering the negative rate further, unless a sharp rise in the yen threatens exports, said Yasunari Ueno, chief market economist at Mizuho Securities.
Mr. Kuroda was more optimistic about negative rate effects when he spoke just over a week ago during the Federal Reserve’s annual meeting at Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Still, Mr. Kuroda’s speech also included his customary declarations that he would do whatever it took to achieve his 2% inflation target. He said he would take additional action if necessary and said there would be “enormous” benefits from 2% inflation. “There may be a situation where drastic measures are warranted even though they could entail costs,” he said.
He reiterated that the BOJ had “ample room” to expand its target for raising the monetary base, currently at ¥80 trillion ($770 billion) a year, and could try “other new ideas.”
Norinchukin Research Institute chief economist Takeshi Minami said he suspected that Mr. Kuroda, by frankly speaking of policy side effects, might be trying to win over the public before delivering further easing. “He probably wanted to say that negative rates entail costs but they will give you greater benefits,” Mr. Minami said.
Mr. Kuroda’s words are under close scrutiny from investors waiting for the results of the central bank’s “comprehensive assessment” of its 3½-year campaign to end deflation. The BOJ announced the assessment in July and said it would be released at the end of the BOJ’s Sept. 20-21 policy meeting.
Write to Takashi Nakamichi at takashi.nakamichi@wsj.com and Megumi Fujikawa at megumi.fujikawa@wsj.com
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/44051924-6f9f-11e6-a0c9-1365ce54b926.html#ixzz4JS2XJPTD
When the European Central Bank’s top officials gather in Frankfurt this week, they will confront a dilemma that has only grown more difficult over the summer.
Bankers in Germany and elsewhere are up in arms about the ECB’s ultraloose monetary policy — most of all, negative interest rates that have crushed many institutions’ profit margins
But the lacklustre recovery has also led prominent economists to urge the eurozone’s monetary authority, and its counterparts elsewhere, to go further in their actions rather than reining them in.
A report last week by the International Centre for Monetary and Banking Studies and the Centre for Economic Policy Research concluded that interest rates should be cut further below zero and asset purchases expanded.
“Any side-effects are manageable and not of a magnitude to justify timidity,” said the study, known as the Geneva report and written by four senior economists.
While the debate between partisans and opponents of negative rates has become steadily more impassioned, in practice the effectiveness of such policies often depends on the characteristics of individual economies.
Factors such as how banks finance themselves, the prevalence of private pensions, the strength of national currencies and the use of alternatives to cash are particularly important.
Such variables can decide whether negative interest rates feed through into the general economy or fall far short. They help explain the differences between the seven regions that have experimented with the policy since 2012: Denmark, the eurozone, Switzerland, Sweden, Bulgaria, Japan and, most recently, Hungary.
In Denmark, for example, some homeowners now receive — rather than pay — interest on their mortgage each month, while in the eurozone the boost for ordinary consumers has been far less. And while negative rates have weakened the Swedish krona, making exports more attractive, there has been no comparable effect in Japan.
Banks have found it more difficult to pass rate cuts on to borrowers in countries where they are highly reliant on retail depositors for financing. If financial institutions want to cut rates charged to borrowers without squeezing profit margins, they must also cut interest paid to depositors — or find other ways of boosting revenues.
Some banks in countries such as Ireland, Denmark and Switzerland have started to charge companies for holding deposits but most seem less willing to charge individuals — perhaps because they fear permanently losing customers. In Japan, it has even been suggested such charges could be illegal.
Banks in Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain are heavily reliant on retail depositors. But in France and the Netherlands institutions have more varied sources of financing while Nordic banks get an extremely low share of their funding from deposits.
The ECB is seeking to mitigate the problem through cheap loans that provide commercial banks with as much as €27bn in alternative financing, through its targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTRO) programme.
Another problem is that negative, or very low, interest rates make it harder to accumulate assets needed to provide private retirement incomes. This may, perversely, lead people or their employers to save rather than spend more.
This is a serious concern in the UK, where Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, describes himself as “not a fan” of negative rates, and where many people rely on private pensions for retirement income. But in most of continental Europe pensions are still provided by the state through unfunded, pay-as-you-go schemes.
Guntram Wolff, director of Bruegel, a Brussels think-tank, says that in such countries, one would “almost expect the opposite” of the effect in the UK. Loose monetary policy that boosts the economy and employment should make pay-as-you-go pension schemes easier to sustain, so reducing individuals’ concerns about future pension income. In Germany, around two-thirds of pension income comes from the state.
Negative interest rates can also bring about a currency depreciation, increasing imported inflation and export demand. Denmark and Sweden benefited in this way when interest rates were cut. But it has been a different story in Japan. The yen continues to be viewed as a haven, attracting foreigners despite negative interest rates.
One final factor plays a big role in determining the success or otherwise of negative interest rates: notes and coins.
As long as people have access to cash, they may be able to avoid negative interest rates, limiting the scope for central banks to cut interest rates much further.
But the importance of cash varies across countries. Sweden, where negative rates are seen as relatively successful, is closer to being cashless than many other economies. The cost of storing cash is lower in the eurozone and Switzerland, which both have very high denomination banknotes — the €500 and SFr1,000.
The authors of last week’s Geneva report argue that as economies evolve, even this constraint on the effectiveness of negative rates may fade.
“An abrupt abolition of cash . . . is not practically or politically realistic, but some day we may live in cashless economies,” they wrote. “If cash ceases to exist . . . central banks can make nominal interest rates as negative as needed to spur recoveries from recessions.”
Additional reporting by Ralph Atkins, Robin Harding and Claire Jones