Where is all the money going?

Central banks in the world’s largest economies, the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve in the United States, have recently announced plans for creating an unlimited amount of money.  A third central bank, the Bank of Japan, also has announced its intent to pump even more cash into the Japanese economy.  The funds from the central banks are used to buy bonds with the goal of pushing down interest rates (for details – see The Demand and Supply of Money).  The money received by those selling the bonds has to go somewhere.  But it is not always clear where the money will go.  Image pumping more and more jam into a donut – some of the jam will go where it is supposed to but the jam will at some point spurt out in unintended directions and make a bit of a mess.

The buying of bonds by the central banks will increase the prices of bonds and decrease the interest rates which mean that bonds will be a less attractive investment.  The shift of funds away from the bonds being brought by the central banks to other sectors of the economy is seen as an added benefit along with the lower interest rates.  It will help to reduce the borrowing costs of companies which would make them more likely to invest.  But the anaemic state of the economy suggests that such investment is still muted. 

Money has also moved from the bond market into shares.  This also has an upside due to what is known as the wealth effect – consumers will spend more when they perceive themselves to be wealthier (when their shares are worth more).  But any gains in the stock market due to this can only be temporary as the underlying value of the shares which depends on the profitability of the companies can only improve along with the economy.  This had not stopped the stock markets reacting vigorously to the perceived intentions of the central banks.

Considering the global nature of finance, the money does not only stay within the same country but spans the globe looking for the highest return.  However, the bond buying policies add to the colossal amount of funds that can potentially cause havoc in the economies which are their final destinations.  A flood of money surging into a country will increase the value of its currency while putting downward pressure on the currency in the country where the bond buying is taking place.  This dents the exports of the former while boosting the exports of the latter and the bond buying has been labelled as a protectionist policy at a time when sluggish economies make most countries desperate to boost exports.

A previous victim has been Brazil where the value of its currency, the real, climbed to above R$1.6 against the US dollar in July 2011 after having dropped briefly to below R$2.4 against the US dollar at the end of 2008.  The volume of its exports has suffered as a result and the Brazilian economy has slowed.  A strong currency is also a problem in Japan where the central bank followed the lead of central banks in Europe and the United States with its own bond buying plans with one eye on its currency.  The Japanese yen is still close to its record high of around Y76 against the US dollar which was reached in October 2011. 

In the old economic textbooks, the value of currencies would be dictated by the relative competitiveness of different economies.  More competitive economies would be able to export more and the funds drawn in from overseas as a result would increase the value of the currency.  The opposite would hold true for less competitive economies and the system of global trade would trend toward equilibrium as a higher currency would make more competitive economies less so and vice versa.  However, the flow of money across borders now overwhelms the flow of goods and it is the cash that is sloshing around in the global financial system which dictates movements in the currency markets. 

These funds are often completely separated from the reality of the underlying economy and the same forces that push the overall system to equilibrium are not at work as would be the case when trade in goods dominates.  This combined with the ability for cash to be moved almost instantaneously has profound and often chaotic effects on the global economy and our understanding of the economy still lags behind these new circumstances – a humbling reality for any economist.