Sports fans will all be familiar with the commentator who almost always gets things wrong. “Arsenal are very much on top here” he – it is invariably a “he” – will pronounce, or “Root is looking very settled”, only for the opposition to score a goal immediately and for the Yorkshireman to be clean bowled. In economics, a similar role is played by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In the middle of July, Remain fanatics had a field day. “The IMF has slashed its forecasts for the UK economy for next year after Brexit”, crowed the Financial Times. Maurice Obstfeld, the Fund’s chief economist, claimed that Brexit “has thrown a spanner in the works”. Global growth projections for 2017 were cut back, but most of all for the UK.
But on the first day of September, the IMF was forced to admit that growth in Britain had, in a splendidly bureaucratic phrase, “surprised on the upside”. On the same day came the news that manufacturing activity in August had posted its biggest monthly rise in 25 years. On Monday this week, the Markit purchasing managers’ index for the service sector registered the biggest monthly increase in its 20 year history.
The IMF has real form. In 1998, East Asia was experiencing a major economic crisis. Yet in May 1997, the IMF was predicting a continuation of very strong growth in most countries for the year ahead: 7 per cent for Thailand, 8 per cent for Indonesia and 8 per cent for Malaysia. They revised the projections down by December, but even these proved wildly optimistic, as the economies collapsed during 1998, registering a fall in output of over 15 per cent in Indonesia, for example, worse than America in the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Macroeconomics is the study of variables such as GDP which describe the economy at the aggregate level. Since the 1980s, it has been dominated by the concept of equilibrium. Highly mathematical models have been developed, resting on the premise that the economy can correct itself and absorb any shocks. Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s previous chief economist, was a great enthusiast for this project. In August 2008, he published a paper which concluded with the claim “the state of macroeconomics is good”. Three weeks later, Lehman Brothers collapsed.
Apart from the European Commission itself, the IMF has been probably the biggest cheerleader for the euro. Since the inception of the single currency in 1999, a whole series of statements and technical articles from the IMF has eulogised its mystical benefits. At the end of July this year, the IMF’s own Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) was totally scathing of the Fund’s record on this. The top staff became impervious to other points of view and ignored warning signs of the financial crisis. In their view of the world, it simply could not happen.
The IMF exercises enormous influence and power. Yet its persistent ineptness makes England football managers look like world beaters. To add insult to injury, its staff enjoy tax free salaries. It’s time to close the Fund down and go back to the drawing board.
As published in CITY AM on Wednesday 7th September 2016
Image: Valsts kanceleja/ State Chancellery is licensed under CC BY 2.0
