Conquer The Wallstreet !!!: Nouriel Roubini: the coming global stagnation, recession plus deflation

By Prof. Nouriel Roubini

Last January – at a time when the consensus was starting to worry about rising global inflation - I wrote a piece titled Will the U.S. Recession be Associated with Deflation or Inflation (i.e. Stagflation)? On the Risks of “Stag-deflation” rather than “Stagflation” where I argued that the US and other economies would soon have to worry about price deflation rather than price inflation.

As I put it at that time last January:

the S-word (stagflation that implies growth recession cum high and rising inflation) has recently returned in the markets and analysts’ debate as inflation has been rising in many advanced and emerging markets economies. This rise in inflation together with the now unavoidable US recession, the risk of a recession in a number of other economies (especially in Europe) and the likelihood of a sharp global economic slowdown has lead to concerns that the risks of stagflation may be rising.

Should we thus worry about US and global stagflation? This note will argue that such worries are not warranted as a US hard landing followed by a global economic slowdown represents a negative global demand shock that will lead to lower global growth and lower global inflation. To get stagflation one needs a large negative global supply-side shock that, as argued below, is not likely to occur in the near future. Thus the coming US recession and global economic slowdown will be accompanied by a reduction – rather than an increase – in inflationary pressures. As in 2001-2003 inflation may become the last of the worries of the Fed and one may actually start hearing again concerns about global deflation rather than inflation.

Let me elaborate next why…

…unlike a true negative supply side shock – that reduces growth while increasing inflation - a US recession followed by a global economic slowdown is a negative demand shock that has the effect of reducing US and global growth while at the same time reducing US and global inflationary pressures. Specifically such a negative demand shock will reduce inflation and across the world because of a variety of channels.

First, a US hard landing will lead to a reduction in aggregate demand relative to the aggregate supply as a glut of housing, consumer durables, autos and, soon enough, other goods and service takes places. Such reduction in aggregate demand tends to reduce inflationary pressures as firms lose pricing power and then to cut prices to stave off the fall in demand and the rising stock of inventories of unsold goods. These deflationary pressures are already clear in housing where prices as falling and in the auto sector where the glut of automobiles is leading to price discounts and other price incentives. Obviously, inflation tends to fall in recession led by a fall in aggregate demand.

Second, during US recessions you observe a significant slack in labor markets: job losses and the rise in the unemployment rate lead to a slowdown in nominal wage growth that reduces labor costs and unit labor cost, thus reducing wage and price inflationary pressured in the economy.

Third, the same slack of aggregate demand and slack in labor markets will occur around the world as long as the negative US demand shock is transmitted – through trade, financial, exchange rate and confidence channels – to other countries leading to a slowdown in growth in other countries (the recoupling rather than decoupling phenomenon). The reduction in global aggregate demand – relative to the global supply of goods and service – will lead to a reduction in inflationary pressures.

Fourth, during any US hard landing and global economic slowdown driven by a negative demand shock the US and global demand for oil, gas, energy and other commodities tends to fall leading to a sharp fall in the price of all commodities. A US hard landing followed by a European, Chinese and Asian slowdown will lead to a much lower demand for commodities pushing down their price. The fall in prices tends to be sharp because – in the short run – the supply of commodities tends to be inelastic; thus any fall in demand leads to a greater fall in price – given an inelastic supply curve – to clear the commodity prices. And indeed in recent weeks the rising probability of a US hard landing has already lead to a fall in such prices: for example oil prices that had flirted with a $100 a barrel level are now down to a price closer to $90; or the Baltic Dry Freight index – that measures the cost of shipping dry commodities across the globe and that had spike for most of 2007 given the high demand and the limited supply of such ships – is now sharply down by over 20% relative to its peak in the fall of 2007. Similar downward pressure in prices is now starting to show up in other commodities.

Note that a cyclical drop in commodity prices – led by a US hard landing and global economic slowdown - does not mean that commodity prices will remained depressed over the middle term once this global growth slowdown is past. If in the medium term the supply response to high prices is modest while the medium-long term demand for commodities remains high once the US and global economy return to their potential growth rates commodity prices could indeed resume their upward trend. But in a cyclical horizon of 12 to 18 months a US hard landing and global economic slowdown would lead to a sharp fall in commodity prices. Note that even in the case of oil that is the commodity with the weakest supply response to prices – as the investments in new production in a bunch of unstable petro-states (Nigeria, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq and even Russia) are limited - a cyclical global slowdown could lead to a very sharp fall in oil prices. Indeed while oil today is closer to the $90-100 range in the last 12 months oil prices drifted downward at some point close to a $50-60 range even before a US hard landing and global slowdown had occurred. Thus, one cannot rule out that in such a hard landing scenario oil prices could drift to a price close to $60.

The four factors discussed above suggest that – conditional on the negative global demand shock (US hard landing and global economic slowdown) materializing even the risks of stagflation-lite are exaggerated; rather US and global inflationary force would sharply diminish in this scenario and, if anything, concerns about deflation may reemerge again.

This is not a far fetched scenario as one looks back at what happened in the 2000-2003 cycle. Until 2000 the Fed was worried about the economy overheating and rising inflation risk. But once the economy spinned into a recession in 2001 US and global inflationary pressures diminished and by 2002 the great scare became one of US and global deflation rather than inflation. Indeed the Fed aggressively cut the Fed Funds rate all the way to 1% and Ben Bernanke – then only a Fed governor – wrote speeches about using heterodox policy instruments to fight the risk of deflation once and if the Fed Funds rate were to reach its nominal floor of zero percent.

Today, following a US hard landing and a global economic slowdown, the risks of outright deflation would be lower than in the 2001-2003 episode because of various factors: US inflation starts higher than in 2001; the Fed needs to worry about a disorderly fall of the US dollar that may increase inflationary pressures; the rise and persistence of growth rates in Chindia and other emerging market economies implies that – even if such economies likely recouple to the US hard landing – a global growth slowdown will not turn into an outright global recession that would be truly deflationary. Still, while the scenario outlined here – US recession and global slowdown – may not lead to outright deflationary pressures it would certainly lead to a slowdown of US and global inflation.

The fact that the most likely scenario in the global economy in 2008 is one of a negative global demand shock is the one that is priced by bond markets: if investors were really worried about a rise in US and global inflation – or about true stagflationary shocks – the yield on long term government bonds would have not fallen as sharply as it has since last summer. With US 10 year Treasury yield now well below 4% and sharply falling in the last few weeks it is hard to see a bond market that is worried about global inflation or global stagflation. And while until recently commodity prices pointed to the other directions, recent weakness in oil prices, the cost of shipping commodities and the price of some other commodities also signals that commodity markets are now pricing the risk of a US recession and the risk that – with a lag – a US recession will lead to a broader global economic slowdown.

So in conclusion “stag-deflation” (i.e. low growth or recession with falling inflation rates and possible deflationary pressures) is more likely than “stagflation” (low growth or recession with rising inflation rates) if a US hard landing materializes and leads – as likely – to a slowdown in global demand and growth.

So last January I argued that four major forces would lead to a risk of deflation (or stag-deflation where a recession would be associated with deflationary forces) rather than the inflation risk that at that time – and for most of 2008 – mainstream analysts worried about: slack in goods markets, re-coupling of the rest of the world with the US recession, slack in labor markets, and a sharp fall in commodity price following such US and global contraction would reduce inflationary forces and lead to deflationary forces in the global economy.

How have such predictions fared over time? And will the US and global economy soon face sharp deflationary pressures? The answer deflation and stag-deflation will in six months become the main concern of policy authorities. Let me now explain in more detail why…

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Sources :

The Coming Global Stag-Deflation (Stagnation/Recession plus Deflation)

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