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Article Artículo

Former AIG Director Martin Feldstein Warns of Stock and Housing Bubbles

That's one of the things we learn from reading Robert Samuelson's Washington Post column today, although Samuelson identifies Feldstein only by his professorship at Harvard, not his moonlighting work on AIG's board. (In addition to requiring a massive government bailout during Feldstein's tenure as a director, AIG was also rocked by an accounting scandal that forced the resignation of Maurice Greenberg, its longtime CEO.) I'm one of those old-fashioned types who think that track records should matter in assessing the accuracy of economists' assessments, which is why it is appropriate to mention AIG here.

While it would have been enormously valuable if a person of Feldstein's prominence had warned of the housing bubble back in 2003 or 2004, before it had grown so large as to pose a major threat to the economy, his warning now is off the mark according to some of us who did see the earlier bubbles. High stock prices and housing prices are justified by extraordinarily low interest rates we have been seeing in the last decade.

While this could change (interest rates could rise) it would not be nearly as harmful to the economy as the collapse of the housing bubble in 2007–2009 or the collapse of the stock bubble in 2000–2002. Unlike in those two earlier periods, the high asset prices in these markets are not driving the economy. Investment and housing construction are not especially strong, so there is no reason to think they would plummet even if prices in both markets were to fall 20 or 30 percent. Consumption is somewhat high and could fall back 1–3 percentage points of GDP in response to the loss of wealth implied by these sorts of declines. That would slow growth, but need not lead to a recession.

CEPR / January 15, 2018

Article Artículo

Taxing Money: The Goodfriend Approach to Monetary Policy

At a time when the inflation rate has been consistency been well below the Federal Reserve Board's 2.0 percent target, Donald Trump has nominated Marvin Goodfriend to fill one of the Fed's vacant governor positions. Goodfriend argues that the Fed's major policy failure has been that it has inadequately convinced the public of its commitment to fighting inflation.

This seems more than a bit otherworldly, but in the era of Donald Trump, anything is now possible. In Congressional testimony given last year Goodfriend complained:

"If in years past the Fed had been fully committed to price stability as embodied in an inflation target, retirees would be in a much better position today. Years ago, households would have been advised and willing to hold a significant share of their lifetime savings in long-term nominal bonds paying a safe nominal rate of interest. Households could have counted upon the fact that the nominal return would have been locked in purchasing power terms. The promised nominal interest rate, having incorporated a 2% inflation premium to offset the steadily depreciating purchasing power of money at the Fed's inflation target, would have delivered a safe long-term real return upwards of 3% per annum.

"Instead, the Great Inflation called the Fed's commitment to price stability into question as it decimated the real return on long term nominal bonds. Responsible households have since steered away from saving in long-term nominal bonds to protect themselves from inflation risk. To avoid inflation risk, households have shortened the maturity of their interest-earning savings and reached for more return in equity products, forced to accept the risk of ultra-low short-term interest rates and volatile equity prices in the bargain."

This one is worth stepping back from and taking a deep breath for a moment. We have just gone through a long period following the Great Recession in which the unemployment rate was needlessly kept higher than necessary primarily due to lack of adequate fiscal stimulus, but also a monetary policy that was less aggressive than it could have been in trying to boost demand.

CEPR / January 14, 2018

Article Artículo

Haiti

Latin America and the Caribbean

World

Where Does the Money Go? Eight Years of USAID Funding in Haiti

Since the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the US government has disbursed some $4.4 billion in foreign assistance to the tiny Caribbean nation. At least $1.5 billion was disbursed for immediate humanitarian assistance, while just under $3 billion has gone toward recovery, reconstruction, and development. Since many of the funds have gone toward longer-term reconstruction, there remains some $700 million in undisbursed funding ? in addition to annual allocations.

In our 2013 report “Breaking Open the Black Box,” we found:

Over three years have passed since Haiti’s earthquake and, despite USAID’s stated commitment to greater transparency and accountability, the question “where has the money gone?” echoes throughout the country. It remains unclear how exactly the billions of dollars that the U.S. has spent on assistance to Haiti have been used and whether this funding has had a sustainable impact. With few exceptions, Haitians and U.S. taxpayers are unable to verify how U.S. aid funds are being used on the ground in Haiti. USAID and its implementing partners have generally failed to make public the basic data identifying where funds go and how they are spent.

In response to that report, and others from USAID’s own inspector general and from the Government Accountability Office, the US Congress passed bipartisan legislation (the 2014 Assessing Progress in Haiti Act, or APHA) requiring greater reporting requirements from State and USAID.

These additional reporting requirements, which include information on subcontractors, as well as benchmarks and goals, represent a significant step in the right direction regarding transparency around US foreign assistance. However, limitations remain.

A joint review published in December 2016 by CEPR and the Haiti Advocacy Working Group found that the reports on US assistance in Haiti contain “omissions and deficiencies, including incomplete data, a failure to link projects and outcomes, and a failure to adequately identify mistakes and lessons learned.”

These weaknesses notwithstanding, the congressionally mandated APHA reports provide the most complete picture available of US assistance programs, whether in Haiti or anywhere else in the world, and remain useful especially for organizations on the ground looking to investigate or follow up on specific US-financed programs.

But a recent review of contract and grant information from USASpending.gov shows that USAID, and US foreign assistance generally, is still plagued by many of the same problems that have been evident for years. While USAID has drastically changed its rhetoric about partnering with local organizations and involving local stakeholders in the development of new programs, it does not appear to have made significant changes to its system of allocation of USAID funds. And now, what progress has been made appears threatened.

Some Progress with Local Partners, But the Beltway Bandits are Still on Top

The majority of US assistance to Haiti is through USAID. Since 2010, USAID has disbursed at least $2.13 billion in contracts and grants for Haiti-related work. Overall, just $48.6 million has gone directly to Haitian organizations or firms ? just over 2 percent. Comparatively, more than $1.2 billion has gone to firms located in DC, Maryland, or Virginia ? more than 56 percent, as can be seen in Figure 1. The difference is even starker when looking just at contracts: 65 percent went to Beltway firms, compared to 1.9 percent for Haitian firms.

Figure 1. USAID Awards by Location of Recipient (Percent of Total)
Haiti 2018 USAID bylocation
Source: USASpending.gov and authors' calculations

USAID has made it a priority to involve more local firms and civil society organizations ? holding informational sessions, meetings with stakeholders, etc. While there has been some slight improvement in the amount of funds going directly to Haitian organizations since 2010, the trend has more recently reversed direction.

In 2016, USAID assistance to Haiti was lower than in any year since the earthquake, totaling $140 million. However it was also the year when the greatest amount of USAID funds was allocated directly to Haitian organizations ? more than $15 million. This is primarily due to an increase in Haitian recipients of USAID grants. After totaling just $2.5 million from 2010 to 2014, Haitian grantees received more than $22 million in 2015–2016. A significant portion of this, nearly $6 million, went to Papyrus, a local management company, in order to increase the capacity of local organizations to partner with USAID.

In 2017, however, funds awarded to Haitian organizations were reduced drastically. Only one new grant was initiated with a local partner last year, totaling just $700,000. Though it remains too early to tell if this will continue into 2018, the decrease would appear to be consistent with the Trump administration’s stated “America first” policy.

Jake Johnston / January 11, 2018