Thursday, February 24, 2011

This Is What Adjustment Looks Like (An Ongoing Series)

. Thursday, February 24, 2011

Increasing inflation in China causes a real exchange rate appreciation. Michael Pettis:

[T]he month-on-month increase in prices suggests that inflation is running at just under 13% annually, although month-on-month numbers are always suspect because they don’t correct for seasonality and one or two big numbers can have a disproportionate effect. Still, although the CPI inflation number was below market expectations it is nonetheless well above the PBoC’s comfort level, which is officially 4%. In December the year-on-year rise in prices was 4.6%.

This stubbornly high inflation number, coupled with good growth numbers and a surge in exports will, I suspect, give Beijing the sense that it has room to tighten, so I expect that we will continue to see measures such as interest-rate and minimum-reserve-requirement hikes to slow down economic growth. In keeping with this on Friday the PBoC announced yet another 50-basis-point hike in minimum reserves (making it the fifth hike in five months).

But will these measures bite? My guess is that they will at first, but that when they do they will be quickly reversed. Any real attempt to reduce the sources of overheating will cause economic growth to slow too quickly, and Beijing will change its mind, especially if, as I expect, inflation peaks soon and starts to decline.

Let’s face it – most Chinese growth is the result of overheated investment, and removing the sources of overheating without eliminating growth is going to prove impossible. I have been making the same argument for at least two or three years, and so far we have seen how Beijing veers between stomping on the gas when the economy slows precipitously and stomping on the brakes when it then grows too quickly. I don’t believe anything has changed.


More at the link.

0 comments:

This Is What Adjustment Looks Like (An Ongoing Series)
 

PageRank

SiteMeter

Technorati

Add to Technorati Favorites