Not every Nobel-winning idea applies to daily life, but Ed Prescott’s work on ‘time consistency’ and the need for credibility in economic policies explains both why I may buy a Toyota when my Ford pickup wears out and why Goldman Sachs goes on taking risky positions even after fearing insolvency because of excessive risk-taking 18 months ago.
The core of the economic ideas that win Nobel prizes often can be summarized, at least imperfectly, in short adages. Ted Schultz won in 1979 for asserting that peasants may be illiterate but are not stupid. James Tobin got the 1981 prize for explaining why it isn’t smart to put all your eggs in one basket. And Ed Prescott, a University of Minnesota professor for two decades, was honored in 2005, together with Finn Kydland, for explaining why past actions often not only speak louder than brave words about the future, but limit what one actually can accomplish in the future.
For policies to be effective, they asserted, they have to be consistent over time. Policy-makers in nations like Greece or Argentina that have besmirched fiscal histories can make stirring commitments to budgetary prudence. But unless people both inside and outside of Greece really believe these commitments, they are likely to take actions that will render the newly proclaimed sound finance policies ineffective.
What applies to Greek taxpayers and public servants, along with those who buy Greek government bonds, also is true for people buying cars.
I am “a Ford man,” having owned at least 13 different Ford cars or pickups and driven another three registered in my mother’s name. All but one were very satisfactory vehicles. The 2003 F-250 pickup I drive right now is great.
But there have been little problems. There was the electrical arc that started a fire in the steering column in the 1979 Fairmont. Luckily, I was able to put it out by pulling the ground cable off the battery and dumping a can of pop into the smoldering wiring.
Then there was the electrical glitch in the F-250 that shut off the stop and brake lights and cost several hundred dollars to fix, even though the vehicle was less than five years old and had fewer than 40,000 miles. And there was the dealer who didn’t have the faintest idea of how to get me a missing jack rod tip, and sundry other poor service incidents.
In summary, I have had basically good vehicles but have been frustrated by specific poor design or quality or service quirks.
In contrast, despite all the recent negative news about the company, the three Toyotas I have owned also have been excellent vehicles. And Toyota’s quality control and dealer service have been markedly superior. So, unless there are some marked changes, when my current pickup dies, I’ll certainly consider a Toyota. Ford’s advertised commitments to quality and service won’t readily overcome the experience I had.
Such consumer satisfaction or dissatisfaction may affect individual companies, but is of trivial importance to our society as a whole.
That is not true for the damage done to policy credibility by Federal Reserve and Treasury actions to stave off financial sector collapse over the last two years.
We long said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were not government agencies and their securities were not legally guaranteed by the government. We said that unless you were a commercial bank that had joined the Federal Reserve System, you were not eligible for emergency loans from their discount window.
We said that to borrow from the Fed, you had to present good collateral. We said that if you wanted to put your nest egg in a money-market fund instead of an FDIC-insured bank, you did so at your own risk.
We said that the size of a bank did not affect whether we would step in to stave off its failure. We said that regulating insurance companies was up to states and that the federal government had few powers and no responsibilities even over mega-insurers.
Then, from August 2007 through October 2008, as one wheel after another came off the wagon of the global financial system, we reneged on all of those assurances.
In September 2008, we effectively nationalized Fannie and Freddie and promised holders of their bonds that they would not suffer losses (though we did wipe out these companies’ shareholders.)
We also urged the big investment banks like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to apply for charters as bank holding companies so that they could borrow from the Fed. We accepted dodgy securities as collateral for such loans. When one money-market fund announced a 4 percent loss of principal, we issued a retroactive blanket guarantee of all money in such funds.
We pressed the largest banks to take TARP money even as we closed many small ones. We used a blanket loophole in the Federal Reserve Act to pour more than $100 billion into AIG.
Now, we can pass new financial regulations. We can swear, now and for years to come, that the rules are different and that we will never again do the things we did since August 2007. But nobody is going to believe us.
Big financial firms can take on more risk than they did two years ago, knowing that there is no way we would let them fail right now, with the world economy still in disarray. Regardless of the details of new regulations, everyone knows that when disaster looms, the rules can get thrown away and anything can go in terms of financial rescues.
This is going to haunt us for a long time. And Prescott and Kydland warned us about it 20 years ago.
© 2010 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.