Dicas de Joseph Stiglitz para a cura da economia global
Autor: Mauricio Rodrigues | Publicado: 2011-10-23T13:38:00-07:00

      Neste artigo, Joseph Stiglitz engrossa o coro dos economistas renomados que vêm chamando nossa atenção para, pelo menos, três fatos irrefutáveis, relacionados à crise global: primeiro, que as causas da crise são muito mais complexas do que as aventadas e exaustivamente repetidas pelos analistas de plantão, ao redor do mundo, circunscrevendo-as ao problema dos "subprimes" no mercado imobiliário americano e, consequentemente, ao setor financeiro (razão por que, os principais "remédios" foram direcionados a esse setor); segundo, que os fundamentos da crise são, essencialmente, de origem macroeconômica e já estavam estabelecidos há bastante tempo, tanto nas economias industrializadas como nas emergentes, necessitando apenas de um gatilho para eclodirem; e terceiro, e mais importante, que a saída da crise passa necessariamente pela forte intervenção dos governos - leia-se aumento de gastos - mas, acima de tudo, que essa intervenção deve mudar radicamente de foco.Como compartilhamos dessas idéias, reproduzimos o artigo completo, para sua apreciação. To Cure the Economy     Joseph E. Stiglitz








   2011-10-03To Cure the Economy   NEW  YORK – As the economic slump that began in 2007 persists, the question  on everyone’s minds is obvious: Why? Unless we have a better  understanding of the causes of the crisis, we can’t implement an  effective recovery strategy. And, so far, we have neither.

We were told that this was a financial  crisis, so governments on both sides of the Atlantic focused on the  banks. Stimulus programs were sold as being a temporary palliative,  needed to bridge the gap until the financial sector recovered and  private lending resumed. But, while bank profitability and bonuses have  returned, lending has not recovered, despite record-low long- and  short-term interest rates.

The banks claim that lending remains  constrained by a shortage of creditworthy borrowers, owing to the sick  economy. And key data indicate that they are at least partly right.  After all, large enterprises are sitting on a few trillion dollars in  cash, so money is not what is holding them back from investing and  hiring. Some, perhaps many, small businesses are, however, in a very  different position; strapped for funds, they can’t grow, and many are  being forced to contract.

Still, overall, business investment –  excluding construction – has returned to 10% of GDP (from 10.6% before  the crisis). With so much excess capacity in real estate, confidence  will not recover to its pre-crisis level anytime soon, regardless of  what is done to the banking sector.
The financial sector’s inexcusable  recklessness, given free rein by mindless deregulation, was the obvious  precipitating factor of the crisis. The legacy of excess real-estate  capacity and over-leveraged households makes recovery all the more  difficult.

But the economy was very sick before the  crisis; the housing bubble merely papered over its weaknesses. Without  bubble-supported consumption, there would have been a massive shortfall  in aggregate demand. Instead, the personal saving rate plunged to 1%,  and the bottom 80% of Americans were spending, every year, roughly 110%  of their income. Even if the financial sector were fully repaired, and  even if these profligate Americans hadn’t learned a lesson about the  importance of saving, their consumption would be limited to 100% of  their income. So anyone who talks about the consumer “coming back” –  even after deleveraging – is living in a fantasy world.

Fixing the financial sector was necessary  for economic recovery, but far from sufficient. To understand what needs  to be done, we have to understand the economy’s problems before the crisis hit.

First, America and the world were victims of  their own success. Rapid productivity increases in manufacturing had  outpaced growth in demand, which meant that manufacturing employment  decreased. Labor had to shift to services.

The problem is analogous to that which arose  at the beginning of the twentieth century, when rapid productivity  growth in agriculture forced labor to move from rural areas to urban  manufacturing centers. With a decline in farm income in excess of 50%  from 1929 to 1932, one might have anticipated massive migration. But  workers were “trapped” in the rural sector: they didn’t have the  resources to move, and their declining incomes so weakened aggregate  demand that urban/manufacturing unemployment soared.

For America and Europe, the need for labor  to move out of manufacturing is compounded by shifting comparative  advantage: not only is the total number of manufacturing jobs limited  globally, but a smaller share of those jobs will be local.

Globalization has been one, but only one, of  the factors contributing to the second key problem – growing  inequality. Shifting income from those who would spend it to those who  won’t lowers aggregate demand. By the same token, soaring energy prices  shifted purchasing power from the United States and Europe to oil  exporters, who, recognizing the volatility of energy prices, rightly  saved much of this income.

The final problem contributing to weakness  in global aggregate demand was emerging markets’ massive buildup of  foreign-exchange reserves – partly motivated by the mismanagement of the  1997-98 East Asia crisis by the International Monetary Fund and the US  Treasury. Countries recognized that without reserves, they risked losing  their economic sovereignty. Many said, “Never again.” But, while the  buildup of reserves – currently around $7.6 trillion in emerging and  developing economies – protected them, money going into reserves was  money not spent.

Where are we today in addressing these  underlying problems? To take the last one first, those countries that  built up large reserves were able to weather the economic crisis better,  so the incentive to accumulate reserves is even stronger.

Similarly, while bankers have regained their  bonuses, workers are seeing their wages eroded and their hours  diminished, further widening the income gap. Moreover, the US has not  shaken off its dependence on oil. With oil prices back above $100 a  barrel this summer – and still high – money is once again being  transferred to the oil-exporting countries. And the structural  transformation of the advanced economies, implied by the need to move  labor out of traditional manufacturing branches, is occurring very  slowly.

Government plays a central role in financing  the services that people want, like education and health care. And  government-financed education and training, in particular, will be  critical in restoring competitiveness in Europe and the US. But both  have chosen fiscal austerity, all but ensuring that their economies’  transitions will be slow.

The prescription for what ails the global  economy follows directly from the diagnosis: strong government  expenditures, aimed at facilitating restructuring, promoting energy  conservation, and reducing inequality, and a reform of the global  financial system that creates an alternative to the buildup of reserves.

Eventually, the world’s leaders – and the  voters who elect them – will come to recognize this. As growth prospects  continue to weaken, they will have no choice. But how much pain will we  have to bear in the meantime?
 &nbsp;Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University, a Nobel laureate in economics, and the author of Freefall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy.      Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2011.
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