BC ECONOMY
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

Nice article from @MESandbu. This from a theme in sellside research before Christmas. Could the pandemic break secular stagnation & deliver a decade of strong growth?

 Historical evidence clear - pandemics are usually deflationary, causing lower r*. Big difference with wars, which usually cause r* to rise. Great Jorda et al paper on this https://t.co/f3a9O3Hw3c
Here is their main result
Historically, Wars destroyed both capital stock and labour force. Pandemics killed millions but left capital stock untouched. Covid-19 is neither of these things. Workforce hasn't plunged, capital stock untouched. Comparison with 1920s is a stretch. So precedent for today..
Some more recent evidence based on modern health crises shows only a short-lived boost to GDP, then weaker trend then before. See this Vox column https://t.co/NXZWP3QNlL
And their main result
The only lesson I would draw from 1920s is in the comparison between Germany/UK and France/US. The former went down the austerity route. Far from the "roaring 20s", they had a decade of deflation and unemployment. Politicians should know this by now...but maybe not 😉
So @MESandbu warns about danger of premature monetary policy tightening. But I think CBs are leaning heavily against such an error. They have internalised the 2010s, eff raising their inflation targets. The policy risk is on the fiscal side. Not sure politicians learnt anything
Bear in mind also that the 2020 recession compounded many of the underlying causes of secular stagnation: esp income/wealth inequality, corporate divergence (weak SMEs), monetary policy at lower bound and will leave a legacy of even higher corporate debt ratios

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As some will have noted, there were a lot of reports yesterday on the fact that £50 billion of banks notes are missing in the UK economy. This got me thinking. And as a result I have to suggest that finding that £50 billion of cash would not be hard. Here’s how to do it.

As the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons has noted, around £50 billion of banknotes in issue have no explained use. In other words, they do not appear to be used for regular cash transactions. What their alternative use might be is not known.

Some could be in the possession of tourists, who have not bothered to exchange them on leaving the country. But the amounts involved would be small.

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https://t.co/7QIx5CFdfJ


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