Simon Johnson escribe un interesante post en Economix en donde se pregunta qué se debe hacer para resolver el problema en Europa, y realiza una comparación con la crisis de México de 1995. Claramente la diferencia más importante reside en la posibilidad que tuvo México de utilizar la depreciación del tipo de cambio, que si bien condujo a una fuerte recesión, redujo el costo que significa ajustar por una reducción en precios nominales, principalmente salarios y una fuerte contracción fiscal como está sucediendo en Grecia. Adicionalmente señala la importancia del gran paquete de "ayuda" que se negocio con estados Unidos.
Precisamente hoy discutí con mis alumnos de Teoría y Política Monetaria este episodio enfatizando este aspecto de la devaluación en el ajuste
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A continuación la referencia a México, pero vale la pena leer toda la nota.
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The big-package approach to economic stabilization was most famously demonstrated in the 1994-95 Mexican crisis. With Mexico’s currency under great pressure, President Ernesto Zedillo and Finance Minister Guillermo Ortiz arranged a $45 billion loan, a large part of which came from the United States.
This may look small today, but it was then seen as a large amount of support. President Zedillo famously remarked that when markets overreact, policy should in turn overreact — meaning, in this context, put more money on the table than is needed. When the financial firepower made available is overwhelming, as it was in the Mexican case, it does not have to be used — in fact, the Mexican loan was repaid in about a year.
But this version of Mexican events skips an important detail. While the external financial support helped prevent the complete collapse of the currency, the Mexican peso did depreciate significantly, which helped immensely. Before the crisis, Mexico had a large current account deficit: it was importing more than it was exporting, and the difference was covered by capital inflows (mostly foreigners willing to lend to the Mexican government).
When the peso fell in value, exporting from Mexico became much more attractive; an export boom of this kind always helps close the current account deficit and stimulate the economy in a sensible manner.
Important parts of the euro zone, like Portugal, Greece and perhaps Italy, badly need a reduction in their real costs of production. If their currencies were independent, this could be achieved by a depreciation of their market value. But this is not an option within the euro zone, and it is within the zone that they need to become more competitive
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The big-package approach to economic stabilization was most famously demonstrated in the 1994-95 Mexican crisis. With Mexico’s currency under great pressure, President Ernesto Zedillo and Finance Minister Guillermo Ortiz arranged a $45 billion loan, a large part of which came from the United States.
This may look small today, but it was then seen as a large amount of support. President Zedillo famously remarked that when markets overreact, policy should in turn overreact — meaning, in this context, put more money on the table than is needed. When the financial firepower made available is overwhelming, as it was in the Mexican case, it does not have to be used — in fact, the Mexican loan was repaid in about a year.
But this version of Mexican events skips an important detail. While the external financial support helped prevent the complete collapse of the currency, the Mexican peso did depreciate significantly, which helped immensely. Before the crisis, Mexico had a large current account deficit: it was importing more than it was exporting, and the difference was covered by capital inflows (mostly foreigners willing to lend to the Mexican government).
When the peso fell in value, exporting from Mexico became much more attractive; an export boom of this kind always helps close the current account deficit and stimulate the economy in a sensible manner.
Important parts of the euro zone, like Portugal, Greece and perhaps Italy, badly need a reduction in their real costs of production. If their currencies were independent, this could be achieved by a depreciation of their market value. But this is not an option within the euro zone, and it is within the zone that they need to become more competitive
2 comentarios:
Desconosco las cifras exactas pero quizá grecia y portugal son más o menos del mismo tamaño relativo con respecto a la Unión Europea que México con respecto a EE. UU. Quizá otra de las diferencia reside en que Unión Europea no está dispuesta a dar el mismo respaldo económico que dio EE. UU.
Saludos,
Mario Enrique
Es difícil comparar el caso de México con Grecia. Grecia no ha sabido cómo actuar desde la crisis de 2008, pues hasta hoy su endeudamiento y la poca credibilidad que tienen sus acciones han llevado a contagiar a ciertos países de la eurozona. Sin duda, es momento de que el FEEF respalde de manera adecuada a este país, sino el contagio seguirá latente.
Viviana Aragón
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