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Financial Markets and Economic Performance: A Model For Effective Decision Making 1st Edition John E. Silvia
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FINANCIAL
MARKETS AND
ECONOMIC
PERFORMANCE
John E. Silvia
Financial Markets and Economic Performance
John E. Silvia
Financial Markets
and Economic
Performance
A Model for Effective Decision Making
John E. Silvia
Captiva, FL, USA
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland
AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Dedicated to Tiffani and the four boys (Caesar, Brutus, Diesel and Baron), who
were there everyday.
Preface
vii
viii Preface
Progress involves a delicate balance between trends and cycles, excesses, and
shortages among the primary markets of goods and financial assets. Disequi-
librium, not equilibrium, characterizes economic and financial markets. This
monograph examines all these factors and much more.
Understanding the successes and failures of an economy demands a close
study of the linkages between real side and market activity. While the real side
economy of consumption, investment and government spending is the base-
line of undergraduate macroeconomics, finance’s central role is often over-
looked. Consider, for now, that consumer spending, the C in (C + I +
G of undergraduate macroeconomics) is accompanied by credit card, auto
and mortgage finance. Business investment, the I, is supplemented by bank
loans and corporate bonds. State and federal government spending, the G, is
supported by federal debt finance. Coverage of real side activity is often not
accompanied by the financial side that supports that activity.
Economic growth moves with credit growth—sometimes ahead, some-
times behind. Despite varying degrees of volatility, business fixed invest-
ment and personal consumption move in sync with overall economic growth.
Credit spurs growth throughout an economy; lack of credit limits growth.
This linkage is even more essential to growth in emerging markets. Patterns
of credit allocation and economic activity sometimes operate within different
cyclical patterns. Such is the character of the experience.
This monograph focuses on the interactions of four financial markets—
those for goods, credit, equity, and foreign exchange and the economic drivers
underlying their movements.
Access to finance in each market spurs economic growth. This may appear
obvious at first, but the intricacies of the credit and growth linkages provide
a fascinating story of trends and cycles and the constant evolution of an
economy.
To appreciate the feast set before us, a framework is needed—the interre-
lationships between the prices of the four markets (equity values, benchmark
Treasury rates, corporate profit expectations and equity values, exchange rates)
which provides a rationale for the movement of such prices. In addition, the
framework highlights the danger of a common approach among many finan-
cial and business firms, as well as investors, to analyze markets in isolation—as
if each market is its own silo. A focus on private market prices and market
fundamentals rests on the logic that these markets reflect these interrelation-
ships and the leading role of prices and price expectations in financial and
economic cycles.
In addition, price signals are always moving—markets are in disequilib-
rium or out of balance. With just four markets, there are many moving
Preface ix
parts and prices are constantly adjusting to new information. Economics and
finance are dynamics processes—no linear lines here.
Market prices, and their mispricing, provide the disequilib-
rium/imbalanced forces associated with subsequent economic downdrafts
and recoveries. For example, the volatility of commodity (oil, wheat) prices
in the 1970s, followed the break in the link between gold and exchange rates
in 1971.
The dot-com bubble of 1998–2002 saw a significant mispricing of
expected rates of return on equities that brought about an equity market
correction and a brief economic recession. In the period leading up to the
Great Recession of 2007–2009, mispricing of housing (over counting returns,
underpricing risk), drove the boom and then the bust.
An effective model for the demand and supply in any market, such as
credit or equity whether by individuals or institutional investors, must reflect
a broader set of independent factors. These include: an investor’s expecta-
tions for economic growth, an interest rate as a discount factor, the wealth
of the individual or society (effectively allowing tax policy and inflation in
the back door of the model), the expected dollar exchange rate (a benchmark
to allow the investor to discern between domestic and foreign opportunities)
and, finally, a sense of valuation.
There is no effective alternative to watching the data, following policy
turns, and avoiding the anchoring bias that economic values will return to
previous benchmarks. This pattern highlights another challenge with market
information. Such information reflects a combination of actual economic
fundamentals, as well as the expectations of market actors, which can
be dashed when future outcomes do not match their expectations. This
mismatch is the driver for second-round market pricing and further economic
adjustments. Constant action and reaction propels activity and undermines
the search for fixed, permanent benchmarks.
In this monograph, I take a broad look at some macro linkages. I review
these here simply to show the linkages and the hypotheses underlying such
linkages as I consider the baseline patterns of economic growth and inflation,
the relative movements in money, and asset prices that provide a perspec-
tive on where we are in the economic and credit cycle.Decision-making also
requires a disciplined, short list of real and financial indicators. There is no
place for single variable explanations. There are no linear patterns of behavior
in financial market prices.
Understanding the movement of financial and real goods prices between
multiple markets requires an intellectual flexibility that departs from the
restrictions imposed by the silos many corporate analysts utilize. Because of
x Preface
such thinking in silos, analysts often fail to notice the movement of prices and
their influence between the multiple levels above, below and on the financial,
and economic, playing fields of the immediate problem at hand.
Now it is time for a new adventure. What makes markets so fascinating
is that we move from one adventure to another. Change is constant and it
generates movement in market prices. Commentary must have context. Too
much of education is techniques without context. This has been a concern
since the time of the scientist and philosopher Francis Bacon. There is preci-
sion without purpose—the number of angels on the head of a pin. Too many
precise mathematical solutions without a realistic setting of the problem.
Often a problem is simply assumed away by excessively restrictive assump-
tions; this allows a precise but irrelevant result totally devoid of usefulness to
decision makers.
Defining signals of change in an economic framework is the next building
block for an effective decision-making process. Economic developments
reflect movements in both the real economy and financial markets.
Economic and financial decision-making is not just about economic and
financial benchmarks. A framework must capture the essence of the story.
Thoughtful, economic commentary is based on an initial framework that
defines how we see the world and then allows an analyst to incorporate
change, make choices, examine the implications of those choices and, if needs
be, define a new framework on how the world works. In our first book,1
we defined this decision-making process because of the frequent practice of
defining a framework of price determination but not allowing for possible
alterations to that framework. The result is a static, rigid view of the economy
without adjusting for change.
This monograph describes two dualities—a duality of the decision-making
process and economic and financial market interactions; and a duality in
defining the evidence presented and then defining a process to identify change
and make choices to alter, or not alter, the framework of price determination
in the economy. This is detective work at its best. The nuances and mysteries
of the economy and financial markets continue.
Credit has its own cycle, as will be shown in the review of the household,
business, and government sectors. Financial markets are interrelated, and the
economy and the financial markets are fraternal twins. While so much of
current commentary focuses on the economic cycle, it is important to look at
the credit cycle and seek hints of possible links between markets.
Special thanks are due to a long list of long-time friends and colleagues who
have contributed to my life-long education in the economy and financial
markets. I list here only the usual, and unusual suspects, from many. First
thanks to Larry Rothstein and Grace Sauter for their help all along the writing
and research process.
For research support, special thanks goes to Brian Lewandowski, Jacob
Dubbert, Mariah Coughlin, Ryan Bohren, and Daniel Ortiz. Editorial and
xiii
xiv Acknowledgments
research reviews were provided by Matt Burrell, Ken Urbaszewski, Jack Klein-
henz, Carl Weinberg, Chad Morganlander, Brian Belski, Martin Hutchinson,
and Ray Stone.
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” Pablo Picasso
The journey behind this book reflects the inspiration of the work of Al
Wojnilower, Henry Kaufman, Art Laffer and Rudi Dornbusch, a long-time
friend who has passed, as well as the attention given to detail by Steve Slifer,
Ray Stone, Ward McCarthy, John Ryding, Mike Lewis, and Maury Harris.
Broader intellectual credit and inspiration remain with Stephen Ambrose,
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jim Grant, Niall Ferguson, Jim Collins, John Steele
Gordon, Robert Barro, Richard Neustadt, and Ernest May, and the late Peter
Bernstein.
Thanks will always go to my team in the Economics Department at Wells
Fargo for their support and insights on the economy.
Final thanks goes to Tula Weis who provided the editorial support to
complete this effort.
Contents
xv
xvi Contents
Conclusion 441
Index 445
About the Author
xvii
xviii About the Author
xix
xx List of Figures
xxiii
1
Why Finance Matters for Economics: The Story
of Financing the Railroad
1 Nothing Like It in the World, by Stephen E. Ambrose, 2001, Simon & Schuster.
2 An early introduction of the role of financial assets is found in Karl Brunner and Allan H. Meltzer,
“Money, Debt, and Economic Activity,” Journal of Political Economy, September/October 1972, 80(5).
3 David Rosenberg, Rules to Guide Research, mimeo.
4 The role of household balance sheets influencing housing demand specifically is found in Edward C.
Prescott, Effects of Unanticipated Monetary Policies: An Unanticipated Finding, University of Minnesota
mimeo, 1993.
5 A view on the importance of the credit market appears in James S. Fackler “An Empirical Analysis
of the Markets for Goods, Money, and Credit,” Journal of Money and Banking, February 1985, 17(1).
1 Why Finance Matters for Economics … 3
14.0
12.0
10.0
8.0
Percent Change
Axis Title
6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
-2.0
-4.0
Quarter
Recession GDP Total Credit
that time, nominal GDP rose 4.7% in Q1 and 4.5% in Q4 year over year,
both slightly below its long-run average of 4.9%. Meanwhile, total credit
rose a mere 3.9% on a year-ago basis in Q4. Total credit is further from its
long-run average of 6.7%, exemplifying the recent weakness in credit growth.
Credit’s tame performance over the 2010–2019 expansion is striking given
the relatively low-interest rates of this period. Low-interest rates are normally
associated with faster credit growth. Slower credit growth and lower interest
rates thus might be contributing factors or the result of a weaker pace of the
current expansion. It appears that a credit markets model is much broader in
scope than just interest rates and credit aggregates alone.
From a statistical perspective, nominal GDP growth correlates well with
credit growth in the US, but growth in credit alone does not stimulate growth
in GDP. Theoretically, while these variables are correlated together, causality
is a different matter—which we shall see for many economic/financial pairs
as we proceed through the book.
50.0
40.0
30.0
Percent Change
20.0
10.0
0.0
-10.0
-20.0
-30.0
Quarter
United Kingdom China United States
consumer credit in the forms of credit cards, auto loans, and mortgage credit.
Business real investment is related to gains in short-term bank credit and
longer-term bond finance in Chapters 5, 6, and 7. Finally, federal government
spending is financed, at least in part, by the issuance of federal debt, covered
in Chapter 12.
During the current economic expansion, the pace of private credit growth to
the consumer and business sectors has been particularly weak relative to prior
economic expansions—note the modest growth in total credit in the current
expansion shown in Fig. 1.1.
Since the business and consumer sectors are major contributors to
economic growth and job gains, it is not a surprise that the overall pace of
economic growth and job gains have been modest, at best, during the current
6 J. E. Silvia
cycle. This is particularly apparent by the big drag of credit during the first
few years of this expansion.
This interaction of private credit and spending imparts a procyclical
pattern to both economic activities. If not carefully monitored, this creates an
abrupt halt to both when perceptions of risk and economic growth opportu-
nities are altered. This brings into the framework, the role of expectations in
setting prices as well as creating volatility in the financial/economic market
prices—explored more closely in Chapter 2.
6 Friedrich Nietzche, The Gay Science, 1882, Translated from the German by Walter Kaufman, Vintage
Books, March 1974.
1 Why Finance Matters for Economics … 7
For many economic and credit cycles, the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) federal
funds rate served as the benchmark for pricing short-term credit instru-
ments and as a starting point for long-term credit instruments.7 However,
post the high inflation period ending in 1982, which we call here the
modern era of modest inflation, the movement in the federal funds rate has
reflected a series of structural breaks and a pattern that is not mean reverting
(Fig. 1.3). Throughout this book, simple statistical techniques will be applied
to numerous financial/economic benchmarks. They will help illustrate the
character of each series in terms of its tendency to return to a mean value, its
7 The federal funds rate is the interest rate depository institutions lend reserves to other depository
institutions, often overnight, on an uncollateralized basis. The Fed alters the funds rate to achieve its
policy goals. The funds rate serves a benchmark to price short-term interest rates in the U.S.
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Runon äiti oli kuollut jo hänen pienenä ollessaan. Isän kanssa oli
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