Scénario de base pour la reprise mondiale

Simon Johnson témoignait hier devant le Joint Economic Committee of Congress hearing, ce qui lui a donné l’occasion de mettre à jour son Scénario de Base pour l’économie mondiale. Il partage cette analyse sous forme de PDF avec les internautes qui le suivent sur son blog The Baseline Scenario.

 Johnson, avec Roubini, Krugman et Bradford DeLong (mais celui-ci écrit moins) fait partie des économistes les plus influents aux Etats-Unis. On lui doit notamment une prise de position courageuse concernant la main mise des banques sur l’économie américaine, sous la forme d’un article intitulé The Quiet Coup, paru dans la revue The Atlantic en avril dernier.

L’essentiel de ce que je retiens de son message:

-       La reprise est là, nettement plus forte dans les pays émergents que dans les “vieux pays”.

-       Les marches redeviennent actifs, tant pour les valeurs mobilières que dans l’immobilier.

-       L’intervention énergique et coordonnées des Etats a porté ses fruits.

-       Mais la solution crée le nouveau probléme : comment résorber sans drame les déficits publics?

-       Tant que l’on n’aura pas pu limiter les prises de risque excessifs des milieux financiers, nous serons exposés à une rechute, d’autant plus grave que les Etats ont vidé leurs caisses pour résister à la crise 2008-2009.

-       La Chine, avec une monnaie collée au dollar et son énorme dynamique de croissance , demeure l’électron libre de l’économie mondiale.

 Ci-dessous, quelques extraits de ses conclusions:

- The world economy is experiencing a modest recovery after near financial collapse this spring. The strength of the recovery varies sharply around the world: 

 a. In Asia, real GDP growth is returning quickly to pre-crisis levels, and while there may be some permanent GDP loss, the real economy appears to be clearly back on track. For next year consensus forecasts have China growing at 9.1% and India growing at 8.0%; the latest data from China suggest that these forecasts may soon be revised upwards.

 b. Latin America is also recovering strongly. Brazil should grow by 4.5% in 2010, roughly matching its pre-crisis trend.  We can expect other countries in Latin America to recover quickly also. 

 c. The global laggards are Europe and the United States. The latest consensus forecasts are for Europe to grow by 1.1% and Japan by 1.0% in 2010, while the United Sates is expected to grow by 2.4% (and the latest revisions to forecasts continue to be in an upward direction).  Unemployment in the US is expected to stay high, around 10%, into 2011. 

 - The current IMF global growth forecast of around 3 percent is probably on the low side, with considerably more upside possible in emerging markets (accounting nearly half of world GDP). The consensus forecasts for the US are also probably somewhat on the low side.

 - As the world recovers, asset markets are also turning buoyant. Real estate markets are also showing signs of bubbly behavior in Singapore, China, Brazil, and India. 

 - There is increasing discussion of a “carry trade” from cheap funding in the United States towards higher return risky assets in emerging markets. This financial dynamic is likely to underpin continued US dollar weakness.

 - One wild card is the Chinese exchange rate, which remains effectively pegged to the US dollar.  As the dollar depreciates, China is becoming more competitive on the trade side and it is also attracting further capital inflows. Despite the fact that the Chinese current account surplus is now down to around 6 percent, China seems likely to accumulate around $3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves by mid-2010.

- However, the same policies that have helped the economy avoid a major depression also create seriouys risks - in the sens of generating even larger financial crises in the future.

- We should keep in mind that repeated fiscal stimulus and a decade of easy monetary policy did not lead Japan back to its previous growth rates.  Japanese outcomes should caution against unlimited increases in our public debt.

 - Like all industrialized countries, we also need to look ahead to “fiscal consolidation” in order to stabilize our debt-GDP levels (and pay for the rising cost of Medicare).  The large contingent government liabilities implied by the existence – and potential collapse – of big banks are a major risk to medium-term outcomes.

 - America is well-placed to maintain its global political and economic leadership, despite the rise of Asia. But this will only be possible if our policy stance towards the financial sector is substantially revised: the largest banks need to be broken up, “excess risk taking” that is large relative to the system should be taxed explicitly, and measures implemented to reduce the degree of nontransparent interconnectedness between financial institutions of all kinds.