Spot the good guys

Trade wars are top of mind for those interested in the macroeconomic outlook. As our own Reserve Bank said in today's monetary policy review, " A drawn out period of [trade] tension could continue to suppress global business confidence and reduce growth". And it's not just the US vs China stuff, bad as that is, but it's all over the place, as the World Trade Organisation pointed out a few days ago under the heading 'WTO report shows trade restrictions among G20 continuing at historic high levels'.

Out of casual interest I had a fossick through the WTO's trade database, which among other things counts the prevalence of trade barriers. Here's an interesting result.

We're not angels all the time, but at least on this criterion New Zealand scrubs up well by not adding much to the current protectionist rackets. And full marks to MBIE and the National-led government who in 2017 drew the teeth of the worst of these anti-dumping rorts, by amending the law so that consumers got a look in before anti-dumping duties get imposed. 

Here's the press release at the time, and if you're a trade policy tragic the new public interest test can be found in s10F(2) of the amended Trade (Anti-dumping and Countervailing Duties) Act 1988. It reads: "Imposing the [anti-dumping] duty is in the public interest unless the cost to downstream industries and consumers of imposing the duty is likely to materially outweigh the benefit to the domestic industry of imposing the duty".

Personally I'd have put the onus the other way around - "Imposing the duty is not in the public interest if the costs to downstream industries and consumers are likely to materially outweigh the benefits to domestic industry" - but hey, in these more trade-hostile days, I wouldn't quibble too much about wording. When you get a pro-consumer public interest test in trade law, take it and run.

We are not alone

Although we are heavily intertwined with the global economy, us New Zealanders are not terribly good at living with its corollary: while we like gotcha! blame-finding of local bigwigs, the reality is that a lot of what happens here has precious little to do with anything we've done (or neglected to do), and has a great deal more to do with the great sweep of world affairs. Even our surging house prices (as I argued yesterday) have a substantial international context to them.

Along those lines, I've had a go recently at suggesting (in 'Give the guy a break') that we should cut our Reserve Bank governor some slack. Yes, inflation is still below target. Yes, forecast inflation has been too high. Yes, the Bank raised interest rates in 2014 and (with hindsight) probably shouldn't have. But none of this is at all unique to New Zealand. It's not all, or mostly, or even a fair bit, down to Graeme Wheeler and the team at No 2 The Terrace.

What got me thinking about it again was today's Statement on Monetary Policy from the Reserve Bank of Australia. Here's one graph from it that's worth poring over. It shows that we are in the same boat as the rest of the world: with few exceptions (certainly in the developed world), inflation everywhere is lower now than it used to be, and lower than central banks would like it to be (Australia ditto). Local missteps or inaccuracies can't be any big part of the story.

Here's another, showing how the US Fed - arguably the most sophisticated central bank in the world - has been wrong-footed by this unexpectedly low inflation: again, it's not just us. Earlier this year the Fed thought that it would be marching the Fed funds rate smartly up to 3% by late 2018 ('FOMC' in the graph is the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed's policy-setting group). Now it thinks it'll be more like 2.4%, and chances are that 2.4% is still miles too high: the financial markets' expectations are for sub 1%. The financial markets themselves have also been forced to have a rethink.

Just as ours have. Here's the comparison between the March and June consensus forecasts for our 90 day bank bill rate (from the NZIER's latest consensus poll). You can see (near the bottom) the expected track has been revised down by 0.5%, which is a large change for a single quarter.

Of course we should avoid making any egregious errors of our own. And of course we should aim to do a bit better than the international average. But when things appear to have gone off the economic rails and we're tempted to bag someone for it, it will often be a good idea to take a deep breath and check whether we're wrestling with the same issues as everyone else.