MacroScope

Economists seeking insight into the kind of analysis the European Central Bank is using to support its policy decisions can get hints from its monthly bulletin. Not for everyone, but here’s what is in March’s edition:

* The effective exchange rates of the euro – revised trade weights in the light of global economic integration

* Recent developments in the financial account of the euro area balance of payments

* Impact of the two three-year longer-term refinancing operations

* Liquidity conditions and monetary policy operations in the period from 9 November 2011 to 14 February 2012

* Developments in the issuance and yield spreads of euro area government debt securities

Top billing of the day probably goes to Germany’s Merkel and Italy’s Monti meeting in Rome, though it is quite late in the day.  The Italian premier remains the austerity poster boy, in contrast to Spain’s Rajoy who was partially let off the hook by Brussels last night for abandoning his deficit target, though he was told to split the difference between the first target and his new, looser goal.

While trying to avoid a blizzard of numbers, Spain was supposed to land a deficit of 6 percent of GDP last year and 4.4 this, en route to the main target of 3.0 percent in 2013. Rajoy’s new government announced that last year the deficit had in fact swelled to 8.5 percent of GDP and as such he would only aim for 5.8 percent this year while sticking to next year’s goal. The Eurogroup told him last night to aim for 5.3 this year, cutting some significant slack but, but by demanding more cuts than Rajoy wanted to deliver, probably avoiding serious market disquiet about Spain becoming the new Greece – forever missing its targets – and undermining the bloc’s new fiscal pact while the ink is barely dry.

Nonetheless, the net result is likely to be to drag Spain deeper into recession this year. Looking at bond yield spreads, the markets don’t smell blood yet.

There was a time when 500 billion euros in cash was truly spectacular.

But investors and speculators hoping for an even more eye-popping cash injection at the European Central Bank’s second and most likely last three-year money operation on Wednesday are likely to be disappointed, based on past Reuters polls of expectations.

"Here, have some cash"

Ever since the ECB started offering cheap, long-term loans to keep cash flowing through banks during the financial crisis, a clear pattern has emerged in the forecasts of money market traders attempting to gauge their size.

They have consistently underestimated the size of a given new loan tender the first time it is offered, only to overshoot on subsequent operations of the same maturity.

At this stage in the euro zone crisis, we probably don’t need to be reminded how uncompetitive the peripheral economies are. (Arguably, of course, they would not be economically peripheral if they were more competitive, but that is for tautologists to debate).  The United Nations, in the form of UNCTAD, has just pinpointed another weakness, however — huge underperformance  in foreign directed investing, or FDI.

The numbers it has just released only go as far as 2010, so the real crisis cauldron has yet to come.  But they show that Greece and Italy have been punching way below their weight.

Greece has attracted a relatively small amount of foreign direct investment compared to other countries in the European Union (EU). In 2010, Greece’s share in the EU’s GDP was 1.9 per cent. In the same year, however, the inward FDI stock of Greece amounted to €26.2 billion ($35.0 billion), or less than 0.5 percent of the combined FDI stock of EU countries. Similarly, Greece’s share in the total outward FDI stock of EU countries was 0.4 per cent.

S&P on Monday cut Greece’s ratings to “selective default” but said it would consider the default “cured” after Greece completes its debt exchange. At that point, S&P plans on upgrading the country to CCC. Here is the full statement S&P issued alongside the decision:

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said today that it has lowered its ‘CC’ long-term and ‘C’ short-term sovereign credit ratings on the Hellenic Republic (Greece) to ‘SD’ (selective default).

Our recovery rating of ’4′ on Greece’s foreign-currency issue ratings is unchanged. Our country transfer and convertibility (T&C) assessment for Greece, as for all other eurozone members, remains ‘AAA’.

Ever wanted to know why Germany is not keen on single euro zone bonds? Look no further:

Things are  looking a bit unsteady in the euro zone’s economy.  Just ask Olli Rehn, the EU’s top economic official, who warned this week of  “risky imbalances” in 12 of the European Union’s 27 members. And that’s doesn’t include Greece, which is too wobbly for words. 

Rehn is looking longer term, trying to prevent the next crisis. But the here-and-now is just as wobbly. The euro zone’s economy, which generates 16 percent of world output, shrunk at the end of 2011 and most economists expect the 17-nation currency area to wallow in recession this year and contract around 0.4 percent overall. Few would have been able to see it coming at the start of last year, when Europe’s factories were driving a recovery from the 2008-2009 Great Recession. And it shows just how poisonous the sovereign debt saga has become.

Not everyone thinks things are so shaky.  Unicredit’s chief euro zone economist, Marco Valli, is among the few who believe the euro zone will skirt a recession — defined by two consecutive quarters of contraction — in 2012. This year is “bound to witness a gradual but steady improvement in underlying growth momentum,” Valli said, saying the fourth quarter was the low point in the euro zone business cycle.

Greeks smashing windows and setting fire to shops and banks in a fury of opposition to yet more austerity is gripping.  But it is hardly unique. A few years ago there were similar scenes for weeks after police shot a 15-year old schoolboy.  And back when I lived there, U.S. President Bill Clinton was treated to a similar welcome -- mainly because of his military assault on Serbia (a fellow Christian Orthodox nation) during the Kosovo conflict.

There are doubtless degrees. The latest level of destruction was the worst since widespread riots in 2008 -- and austerity being imposed on Greeks is very painful. But it is worth noting that there are two underlying elements than make such uprisings more common in Greece than elsewhere.

The first is a division in Greek society that goes back to at least the end of the second world war. The civil war that followed the end of the German occupation was brutal and split the country between those wanting western free market democracy and those favouring Soviet-style communism. This carried though into the 1967-74 junta.

Anyone worried about Greece and the potential impact of the euro debt crisis on the world economy should have a chat with Jim O'Neill. O'Neill, the head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management ten years ago coined the BRIC acronym to describe the four biggest emerging economies and perhaps understandably, he is not too perturbed by the outcome of the Greek crisis. Speaking at a recent conference, the man who is often called Mr BRIC, pointed out that China's economy is growing by $1 trillion a year  and that means it is adding the equivalent of a Greece every 4 months. And what if the market turns its guns on Italy, a far larger economy than Greece?  Italy's economy was surpassed in size last year by Brazil, another of the BRICs, O'Neill counters, adding:

"How Italy plays out will be important but people should not exaggerate its global importance.  In the next 12 months the four BRICs will create the equivalent of another Italy."

Emerging economies are cooling now after years of turbo-charged growth. But according to O'Neill, even then they are growing enough to allow the global economy to expand at 4-4.5 percent,  a faster clip than much of the past 30 years. Trade data for last year will soon show that Germany for the first time exported more goods to the four BRICs than to neighbouring France, he said.

Prime U.S. money funds further reduced their holdings of euro zone bank paper in December, although the pace of movement slowed while investors continued to hedge against any bank failures, J.P. Morgan Securities said on Wednesday.  The slower movement out of euro zone bank paper was the result of money funds having already strongly reduced their holdings, J.P. Morgan said in a note to clients.

Euro zone bank paper continued to roll off in December from prime money fund portfolios but has seen some slowing as nearly 70 percent of these exposures have been eliminated from prime fund portfolios over the course of the past year. In spite of continued reductions in euro zone bank exposures, prime fund assets under management were basically flat for the second consecutive month reflecting some level of investor comfort in the level of risk in price fund portfolios as much of the cash that left euro zone bank paper has been reinvested in non-European banks and other high-quality products.

The prime money funds had small net outflows of $2.6 billion in December after net inflows of $4 billion in November, according to J.P. Morgan.