Greece Flag

So, who cares about the Greek debt crisis? It’s a small country, a long ways away.

Answers:

Greece as a Country: “We care!”

The Euro currency countries: “We care!”

Europe Generally: “We care!”

U.S. and International Financial Community: “We care!”

Stock Investors: “We care!”

All right, already.  Here’s why they care.

The background

Through a series of missteps over the last 10 years the Greece government amassed a large government (or sovereign) debt, and then disguised it from its citizens, lending institutions, its Euro partners, and international financial organizations. The recession exacerbated the problem, threatening to push the Greece government into bankruptcy. Annual deficits as a percent of GDP or total national debt as a percent of GDP are higher but not that different from the United States, but in contrast to the U.S. the global investment community has very little confidence in Greek bonds and the ability of the government to repay them. That means Greece has to pay much higher interest rates on its debt, if it can borrow money at all.

What Can Greece Do?

When faced with larger government deficits, policy makers typically turn to two economic “levers” – fiscal policy and monetary policy. On the fiscal side the government can cut spending and/or raise taxes. Both of these actions have met strong resistance in a country used to heavy subsidies of middle class citizens and notoriously poor tax collection records.

Monetary policy can be an effective tool – often because it does not require the approval of the legislature or the voters. Normally a central bank can inject funds into the economy (electronically “printing” money) and use that to pay debts. This injection of money can also lead to the devaluation of the local currency. While devaluing doesn’t sound appetizing it can be very effective, since it encourages more exports and more tax revenues, and because it makes it easier to pay off debts denominated in the local currency.

BUT, Greece can’t execute its own monetary policy. It is a member of the Eurozone – using the Euro as its currency rather than the drachma. As a result Greece cannot unilaterally change the supply of its currency. It does not have control over monetary policy. To make matters worse for Greece, the Euro has held a fairly high value against other world currencies – just opposite of the direction Greece needs to help with its problems.

Euro

How Does the Crisis Affect the Euro?

The Euro is a common currency, currently used by 22 European countries. Decisions on the supply of the Euro are made by a representative body at the European Central Bank.

When a member country, like Greece, threatens to default on its loans, global investors pull funds out of Greece and the Eurozone. This reduces the demand for euros, and causes the value of the euro to fall. This is a mixed blessing. Countries often prefer a strong currency, but a weaker one can encourage exports. Europe is an export driven continent.

Joining the Eurozone initially, countries have to prove that their economies and government budgets are healthy. It is like welcoming someone new onto a lifeboat. You prefer the new person to be healthy. It appears that Greece hid or obscured its economic reports when applying for membership and now its fellow lifeboat members are not happy.

Commentators, such as Paul Krugman, have argued that Greece should never have been allowed in the Eurozone. They also argue that the Euro common currency is flawed if monetary policy is directed centrally, but fiscal policy remains with individual countries. Macroeconomic theory suggests that both need to work in concert, and the slow, deliberative and political style of the European Central Bank is not well suited to crisis management. Here’s one of many Krugman posts on the crisis.

Why the Large Bailouts by European Governments?

Other European countries, particularly those who share the use of the euro currency, want to stabilize the currency in their own self-interest. In addition many of the large banks and financial institutions in Europe hold Greek debt. If Greece defaults on that debt, those institutions are in trouble. France and Germany have been two of the largest contributors. French voters have been relatively quiet about the bailout, but German politics are much more sensitive to the issue. Chancellor Merkel of Germany has to balance the need to preserve the Eurozone economy against the indignation of German taxpayers who feel little affection for Greece.

European policymakers also worry about other members of the Eurozone – including Spain and Ireland. These two countries have stressed economies for reasons different than Greece. Neither of them had profligate government spending, but both have been hit particularly hard by the recession. Additional stresses on Europe could tip these countries further into trouble.

Why the International Community and Stock Investors Worry

The source of concern in the stock markets and among international investors is mostly fear of default. Large financial institutions and other holders of Greek debt would be seriously hurt. If a Greek default pushed other European countries like Spain and Ireland over, the impact grows significantly.

Our Big Mac index, based on the theory of purchasing-power parity, in which exchange rates should equalise the price of a basket of goods across countries, suggests that the yuan is 49% below its fair-value benchmark with the dollar.

Here’s the background. First the theory. In a world of freely floating currency exchange rates, those rates will adjust over time so that a commodity costs the same anywhere in the world. This is called purchasing power parity. An example:  Imagine that Brazil finds some way to sell sugar on the global market at a much lower price than everyone else. Right away sugar buyers can buy more sugar with their own currency from Brazil than anywhere else in the world. This will substantially increase Brazil’s exports.

Now, we also know that if a country’s exports increase significantly their currency will increase in value on the international currency market. That is because all these purchases of Brazilian sugar will increase demand for the Brazilian real. As the value of the real rises Brazilian sugar becomes more expensive to foreign buyers – their own, local currency can’t buy as many real as before. At the same time other sugar exporters may see a slight decrease in the value of their currencies, as sugar buyers switch to Brazil. Over time international currency exchange rates will adjust so that a sugar buyer will be able to buy the same amount of sugar anywhere in the world.  That’s the theory of purchasing power parity. We know that currency rates don’t float perfectly, and in some cases countries seek to influence the value of their currencies. Enter the Big Mac Index.

A number of years ago staffers from The Economist decided to test purchasing power parity (PPP). Rather than using a boring commodity like sugar, they looked at Big Macs, from McDonalds. Big Macs are as close to a commodity at the definition allows – virtually identical everywhere. They recorded the price of Big Macs in scores of countries, converted those prices to dollars and tested the PPP theory. The results showed a wide range of prices for Big Macs.

Now, these results could disprove the PPP theory. Instead, The Economist staffers maintained that PPP was true, and that various countries’ currencies were either over-valued or under-valued. Let’s use China as an example. Earlier this year a Big Mac cost $3.58 in the United States, but only $1.83 in China (after converting yuan to dollars). If PPP is true, then China’s currency is under-valued by almost 50 percent. And, in fact, there is considerable angst in the international community about China’s efforts to artificially lower the value of its own currency in order to protect its huge export market and supporting industries.

Economists love to forecast, and yet have a very mixed record of success with their forecasting. The Big Mac Index can be used as a rough forecasting tool. In the March, 2010 article the Euro was 29% over-valued. Over the last six months the Euro has declined in value against the U.S. – just what the Big Mac Index would predict.

Who says economists don’t have fun?

What Goodman explained was that, during these tumultuous times, investors, including the government of China, are flocking to risk free investments – namely U.S. Treasury bonds. When foreigners do this, they need to convert their local currency into dollars. This increases the demand for dollars, and the value of the dollar rises on the foreign exchange markets.

(Note to budding macro-economists… This increase in the value of the dollar is different from changing values due to inflation or deflation. What we are speaking about here is how the value of the dollar compares with other world-wide currencies.)

Back to the story… the U.S. dollar has enjoyed strong results recently, largely due to this preference by world-wide investors for U.S. bonds. Here is a chart from the Wall Street Journal that compares the dollar to the Yen and the Euro.

From the beginning of the recession in December 2007, the Euro has lost almost 18 percent of its value. The Yen fell, then rose, and is now falling again. The Dollar has had some ups and downs but has grown in value fairly steadily over the last 14 months. It is now worth about 20% more than December 2007.

Now the main part of Arnold’s article was that the surge in the Dollar represents problems for the rest of the world. Part of the problem is that investment funds are flowing to U.S. bonds, instead of financing recoveries in Eastern Europe, Asia, or other parts of the globe. The other problem is that a stronger dollar makes U.S.-made goods and services more expensive to foreigners. That puts downward pressure on our exports.

One small, but relevant, group that benefits from the strong U.S. Dollar – college students going overseas on study abroad programs. Their money will go farther.