Review and Preview on Japan

(Cross-post from Alpha.Sources)

I realize that I am moving in a bit late with this but the data I use to input in my analysis only recently came out for December 2007. More generally, this post is going to be quite big since I have a lot of things I want to get off my chest this time around. I have two main areas of focus I want to cover.

• Firstly I want to finalise my analysis of Japan in 2007 with the December data for consumption expenditures and prices.

• Secondly, I want to continue with a general assessment of two of the main market points in Japan at the moment. The Yen and the BOJ rate policy faced with an incoming slowdown and potential recession.

As for the general situation in Japan I am sure it has not escaped your attention that Japan now seems set to enter a recession. The only question will be the extent and more importantly the length of the slump. In Morgan Stanley's GEF (edition 8th of February) Takehiro Sato points towards industrial production trends as well as US GDP readings and tantamount to the forecast that Japan is heading more meager times ...

The risk of dual recession is mounting. Our US economics team is already calling for capex-induced negative GDP growth in successive quarters (Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun), for a technical minor recession in the first half of the year by definition. We are forecasting that Japan will cling on to a modicum of growth in the Oct-Dec 2007 quarter, boosted by external demand, but there is a possibility that, like the US, that quarter will mark the peak and the economy will retreat in Jan-Mar. Future data for industrial production will tell us if this is the case.

This note will not focus on figures for industrial production or US GDP stats but rather I will initially move in with my traditional focus on the internal demand dynamics in Japan. As ever, the Japan Economy Watch contains the latest cyclical indicators fresh in off the wire in order to bring you up to speed. Here at Alpha.Sources I made a note recently which also sums up the most recent trends and pieces of data. For now, let us turn to the updated charts which usually form the main edifice of my analysis of Japan ...

If we begin with prices we see that inflation, at a first glance, seems to have returned to the shores of Japan even to such an extent that I will soon need to adjust the y-axis of my graph (and yes, this is an apology for a sloppy excel graph). Yet, the most important point to take away from this is, as I have been at pains to hammer home before, the disconnect between the inflation indices. Core inflation as measured by inflation ex food and energy prices is still in negative territory whereas the general index is shooting up thanks to headline inflation. This disconnect suggests that the inflation we are seeing in Japan is not driven by demand factors (demand pull) but rather by supply factors (cost push) and thus this does not signal an impending Japanese recovery. Quite the contrary in fact as the spurt of inflation at this particular point in time will only further pinch an already troubled Japanese consumer. Edward also moves in with a much worth while analysis of the inflation issues in Japan. A key point here will be the extent to which future inflation readings will have a bearing on the BOJ's decision to actually move in with a cut in the already low interest rate of 0.5% in order to accommodate a slumping economy. I don't think Fukui will cut rates before his term ends this spring and given the debacle which may arise in the context of finding a new governor it seems that economic fundamentals should not be the only thing to watch in order to make a call. What seems obvious however is that if inflation pressures suddenly show signs on abating the door will be open for a cut.

If we turn to the indicators for domestic demand proxied by various measures of consumption expenditures we can also close the book on my forecasts for 2007. As such, I dared to venture that growth in consumption expenditures would not increase by more than 1% on a y-o-y basis. Let us look at what we have.

Let us start by the forecast first. As can be observed the Japanese consumers put in a strong showing in December on a y-o-y basis with a 2.2% increase. I have to say that this figure represents something of a fluke for me since if you look at the underlying indicators such as income, retail sales and department store sales they all clocked in with declines. Ken Worsley also ponders the 2.2% increase and provides a detailed break-down which shows how spending on culture and recreation as well as furniture and household utensils accounted for a substantial part of the increase. I have to agree with Worsley though when it comes to January and beyond where the rise in energy prices, declining income, and a general slumping confidence will be sure to slow spending considerably. As for the forecast, the December reading almost had my forecast shattered or, if you will, assured that I was very close to the mark. Consequently, the mean value of the increase in consumption expenditures was a 0.95% monthly y-o-y growth rate. The two remaining charts are merely there for differentiation. The average value for the m-o-m chart was 0.217% in 2007 and together with the y-o-y figure it shows the momentum and level of growth rates we can expect from Japanese internal demand in a given economic environment. The long term index anchors my analysis in the sense that it supports the general hypothesis that domestic demand is on a structural decline in Japan and that this might very well be due to the demographic profile of Japan, this last point of course being a hypothesis of mine. In terms of forecasts for 2008 I have no trouble extending my forecast of an increase of <1%>

Firstly, I think that the Yen demands some attention. Recently, I noted how the Yen was driven by anything but macroeconomic fundamentals. This clearly still seems to be the case. However, the main question is when this will end? At the moment and if you look at the FX price action in the beginning of 2008 almost all Yen crosses have been correlated with the stock market and thus by derivative the general sentiment of risk aversion in the market. This is nothing new in the sense that since the subprime market hit the global economy in the middle of August 2007 the Yen has been the main canary in the coalmine when it comes to the risk sentiment in the market. Yet, the Yen is not only driven by cyclical factors. As such, the decline in home bias of Japanese investors as well as the general yield disadvantage of Japan suggests that all those talks about an undervalued Yen aren't clued in to what is really going on in the sense that what is really the fair Yen value at this point? We need to think about the fact that the whole global economy seems to be undergoing the initial phases of a much more structural correction (recoupling) and in this context it is difficult to see how the Yen can stand its ground. It might not happen today or tomorrow but I have difficulties seeing how the risk aversion dynamic can hold the ground for the more wider and structural trend. Turning to more immediate drivers of the Yen the potential that Japan would intervene in currency markets to cushion the Yen's depreciation has reared its head with regular intervals. Back in early November I asked the question putting the limit at 105 for the USD/YEN which. Various other estimates have been around. Morgan Stanley's Stephen Jen puts it at 100 which is just the same as Macro Man. Recently, currency strategist at Dailyfx Boris Schlossberg kept the speculations alive suggesting, as me, that 105 just might be the threshold for Japan. Currently the Yen is hovering in the region of 106-107 and in this light Boris' conclusion seems to be a sound one, if a bit noncommittal, to take with you in the trenches of FX trading.

While there is certainly no guarantee that the BOJ will intervene at the 105-100 area, economic factors and positioning data suggest that Governor Fukui and company may indeed opt for that solution. Given that possibility the above mentioned strategies should hopefully minimize risk and optimize return for both momentum and carry traders. At the very least traders should pay particular attention to the price action if USDJPY slides down to the 105 level in the near future.

From a macroeconomic point of view this makes sense. Japan is largely dependant on exports to fuel growth as well as need to remember that an appreciating currency is deflationary and Japan has not escaped those fangs just yet. As for the Yen all evidence seems to point towards a continuation of current trends for the immediate future with the Yen acting as a global parameter of risk and investors' risk aversion. In this light, the risk of intervention needs to be weighed in as a potential market mover as we move forward.

The second topic I want to cover has already been mentioned above and essentially also cuts across the whole discussion on the Yen. In short, what will we see from the BOJ? Perhaps the most important thing to note here is that before we get to the discussion of what exactly the policy rate will be as we move forward into 2008 the BOJ will need a new governor. As I noted in my long end-of-2007 note this may well turn out to be quite a messy affair. Whether the shift of guards at the BOJ will turn into the political gridlock many observers have indicated is difficult to see from my desk here in Europe. However, there are some clear risks. As I have argued before a situation of political stalemate in which the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) will use their majority in the upper house to stall the nomination of a new governor will, all things equal, bring the MOF closer to monetary policy making. Basic logic would, in such a situation, call for a freeze of the nominal interest rate until the new BOJ leadership is set to assume their seats. However, if this current slowdown turns for the worse it may provoke measures which at this point in time might seem unrealistic. One risk is thus that Japan re-enters ZIRP over the course of 2008 and that this happens sooner rather than later. Before this materializes however, I am quite happy moving in behind the Morgan Stanley team in forecasting a cut in the main refi rate for Q2 2008.

In Conclusion

A lot of ground has already been covered in this piece and as such I think it is time to move in with some summarising remarks. I had two main objectives in this note. Firstly, I finalised my monthly analysis of consumption expenditures (domestic demand) and prices for 2007. Even though 2007 most likely will go down as a rather strong year in relative terms the failure of the overall consumption expenditure gauge to break the 1% threshold YoY tentatively suggests that domestic demand cannot become a driver of growth in Japan in any given sense. This point was underpinned by the monthly and long terms indicators of consumption. In connection to prices, we observed how inflation seems to be coming back to Japan. Yet, if we strip out energy and food Japan is still stuck in deflation and even though the core-of-core index might also nudge up towards positive territory the transmission mechanism from headline inflation to core inflation does not suggest that the inflation pressures we are seeing are driven by buoyant domestic demand. This does not warrant complacency against inflation but tells a story which needs to be told I feel if you really want to understand what is going on in Japan.

I also had a brief look at the Yen and more specifically the driver of the currency. I concluded that while risk sentiment seems to be the main trend explaining the current movements more general structural forces should not be neglected. The key issue here is timing and thus the dynamic relationship between the immediate environment and the more long term structural trends. Moreover, I also reviewed the latest speculation that we will observe intervention in the FX market by MOF and the BOJ. At this point, we have no clear indication that this will occur but I think the possbility should be entertained that the MOF will dip its toe at some point. In terms of the the BOJ and a subsequent call on the rate policy in Japan I moved in behind Morgan Stanley noting that Q2 2008 will see a cut to 0.25%. Another factor which I discussed was the extent to which the departure of governor Fukui will result in a policy gridlock. The risk is definitely there I would argue and it is a possibility which should be taken into account. I think that such a gridlock would (and should) result in a an effective standstill of rate movements but if the slump turns for the worse new dynamics may come into play where the MOF moves in to 'politically' steer down interest rates. Whether 2008 will see ZIRP is still an open question I think. I believe the probability is fairly high not least because I think that the recession we are now seeing on the horizon may very well be more severe than many expect. The main question however is not centered on the slowdown in Japan per se. This is the nature of economic cycles in the sense that they go up and down; yet, what remains the most compelling question in Japan's case is just how far and how long it will be this time.

Has China's Economic Growth Passed It's Peak?

by Edward Hugh: Barcelona


Is the annual rate of Chinese growth now about to slow, not just temporarily, but may it actually be that the long march of Chinese "catch-up" growth is now finally slowing? This is the question that was asked by the Financial Times earlier this week, and, as they point out, it may well be that behind those headline forecasts for decelerating Chinese output in 2008 there lies a deeper and more significant trend that may mark the arrival of the long-awaited turning point in the trajectory of the Chinese economy.

Certainly both local Chinese and World Bank economists have significantly downgraded their forecasts for China’s 2008 growth in recent weeks – down from 11.4 per cent rate achieved in 2007 to around 9 to 9.5% this year. But more importantly, could the 11.4 per cent expansion in 2007 – the fifth consecutive year of double-digit increase – represent the peak point in headline growth for China's economic development process. That is, after falling back this year, will Chinese growth ever climb back to its previous heights, and even if it doesn't , should this fact be producing concern among us?

On the face of it, it is obvious that noone - not even China - can continue growing at double digit rates forever, and at some stage the cycle of growth will fall steadily back towards the much lower rates traditionally associated with a developed economy. The big question is really, has that point now been reached?

To get an idea of what we are talking about, and of what all this might this mean, perhaps it is interesting to take a quick look at the longer term growth patterns of some other economies who have been through the "accelerated greenhouse" catch-up growth that China is currently enjoying. Perhaps a good place to start would be with South Korea, since South Korea is arguably the South East Asian "tiger" which is most similar to what Chinese economic evolution might look like, since Singapore, Taiwan and Hink Kong are, each in their own way, very special cases.

Now as we can see from the above chart, South Korean was at one point very strong indeed, until growth "peaked" around 1987 (at 11.1%) and since that time growth has followed a more normal cyclical pattern, with the important detail that with each successive cycle Korean growth has slowly and inexorably slowed ("stripping out" the very exceptional sharp decline and rebound produced by the Asian crisis in 1998).

Economic growth for an emerging economy tends to show this kind of profile since in general terms there are both technological and demographic components in "catch up" economic growth - although there may actually be no such thing in reality as a constant steady state rate to catch up with as I try to argue here - and once most of the technological gap has been closed and the benefical momentum of arriving at maximum proportions of the population in the highly productive 25 to 50 age group begins to pass, economies then seem to eshibit a steady loss of momentum rather like air escaping from a pinprick in a gas balloon, as we can see in the cases of the two oldest societies on the planet, Japan and Italy, in the charts below.





Now I have singled out Italy and Japan (the profile for France, or the UK, or the US is really quite different) since they are both late economic developers, and also since their subsequent demographic transition to ultra low fertility has been very rapid, as it is about to be South Korea and China. Hence Japan and Italy have experienced very rapid ageing, and we already know China is about to follow them down this road, at what may well be an even more rapid pace. In fact China may well, thanks to the presence of a forced restriction of fertility, a reasonably high level of life expectancy and a virtually negligible impact from inward migration as we move forward, become the most rapidly ageing society the world has so far seen.

The comparative median age charts for China and South Korea give the general picture. When we get to 2020 China will still be significantly younger than South Korea, but is following the same trajectory. By 2020 Korea will be nearly as old as the three oldest societies - Germany, Japan and Italy - currently are, and will in all probability be older than slower ageing societies like the UK and France. The is a very dramatic change for a newly developed country.




Chinese Growth

So what do we know about growth to date in China? Well, lets look at the longer term chart.



Now when we come to look at this chart, we immediately face a number of important problems. The first and most obvious one is that the further back in time you go prior to 2000 the more unreliable the data is. So the fact that the maximum growth period seems to be in the mid 1980s, followed closely by the mid-1990s burst might, at first sight, seem strange, since it is the growth spurt which China has enjoyed post-1998 which has really been the most convincing. But it should be noted that China's demographic trajectory is virtually unique, and it is the case that it was getting some sort of potential demographic dividend or other well before 2000, so while the earlier data most probably does not give a complete picture, perhaps it would be a mistake to disregard it altogether. Of course, the more credence we give to the 1980s growth, the more we have to reach the conclusion that some significant slowing down or other may well be at hand, since following the trajectory of the line would suggest it. But as I say, maybe we shouldn't give too much credence to earlier data, so we need to be carfeul with this kind of argument.

What we do know is that from the late 1990s onwards China systematically introduced a very extensive labour and financial market reform process, and this certainly has served to unlease a huge amount of pent-up potential, and it is this which has given us the sustained growth since the early 1990s which has only been accompanied by one small dip between 1998 and 1999 (again the Asian crisis).

Now if we think about the currently rather fashionable coupling-decoupling arguments in this context, it is clear that China was effectively "decoupled" during the 2001 internet bust global slowdown, since it kept growing regardless. That is to say there is evidence that China was much more affected by events in surrounding Asia in 1998 than it was by the recession in the G7 in 2001/2002.

There are of course plenty of reasons for taking the view that things may not be the same this time round. China is evidently much more "locked-in" to global dynamics due to its systematically increased share in world trade. Also China was much more able during to trade increasing its market share for slowing overall world growth during the last recession, by using its price leverage - due to all that pent-up unused labour - but again there are reasons (and especially the domestic inflation ones) for thinking that things may not be quite the same this time. This would be doubly the case if China has been able to extend the post 1998 wave beyond its natural duration by taking advantages of the global imbalances situation, and its own currency and price leverage, to extend its export growth beyond what might be considered the normal sustainable extent. Basically I am very suspicious when I see such extended growth with virtually no humps, like we get in the Chinese case. As we can see for the other charts, growth should be more wave like, so we should at least ask ourselves what it is that has been going on?

The Intractable Inflation Problem

So the big question is when will the current wave come to an end, and when could we expect China to follow in the footsteps of South Korea and show us that steady but constant reduction in annual growth rates. Well... looking at the chart, and sticking my neck out, and also making some sort of back of the envelope estimation about how intractable the inflation problem may turn out to be (and of course recent Eastern European and Russian experience is relevant in this context), my feeling is we may well find China starting to slow this year, and the process continuing next year, and the one after etc - with the normal and anticipated ups and downs. So the Financial Times may well be right when it suggested that Chinese growth may slow and never quite be the same again, but there are grounds for thinking that they may perhaps have only captured part of the picture, and the grounds for thinking this are that they do not appear to have factored in population, labour market and inflation dynamics, and the ineveitable interaction of the three of them.

Certainly Chinese growth from now on is going to be constantly pushing up against limits which are increasingly set by the level of inflation. The inflation problem China has is a very real one, and at this point in time it is hard to see how they can adequately address it. Certainly the popular remedy - unchaining the yuan - could just as easily lead to an acceleration of capital inflows and a further increase in the overheating problem as to any more benign outcome, and I here I would suggest we treat New Zealand (and India for that matter) as the "Canaries in the Coalmine" (or if you prefer "smoking guns"). Conventional monetary policy is up against very clear limits at the present juncture.

And the recent resort to administrative measures seems almost destined to fail - as it is failing in the Russian case - since the problem is not a temporary one produced by high oil and food prices (which are anyway in part a by-product of Chinese growth), but is now becoming more endemic and structural. In the face of the present inflation surge the Chinese government has been gradually widening price controls, and finally took the plunge and froze all food prices last month while at the same time clamping limits on fertilizer prices and raising price supports for rice and wheat. These controls are meant to shield China's poor and working classes, who spend up to half their incomes on food. But the inflation spike is blamed on shortages of pork and grain, and it is obvious that putting a lid on prices simply shifts the hardship over to the farmers, discouraging them from raising output, and thus in the medium term reducing output and putting even more upward pressure on prices.

The recent extreme weather has only exacerbated the problem. In order to ease electricity shortages, thousands of trainloads of coal were rushed to power stations and hundreds of mines were kept running through the Lunar New Year holiday. But with the price of coal now forecast to climb by anything up to 100 percent this year, Beijing has yet to say how power companies will cope.

So I am really not that clear that China has any easy way out of the present inflation dynamic - and remember this is a huge change from the moment when China was reportedly "exporting deflation to the rest of the world", a process which at best has lasted from 1998 to 2007, but is unlikely to continue in the same way. In addition there is now significant evidence of labour market tightening in some parts of the Chinese economy. Wages and salaries of employees went up in the 3rd quarter of 2007 - the latest quarter for which we have data - by 22% (and by 27.2% if we take the private sector alone). And there are significant regional differences, with wages in the private sector in Beijing rising by 36.4% year on year. Even subtracting inflation these are sill very high rates of increase in real wages, and are surely not compensated for in their entirety by productivity increases. So China is steadily losing its competitive edge.

Clearly given the very low level from which Chinese wages started, and the restrained growth in the value of the yuan, it is possible to absorb to some extent such increases. The problem is that they may go on and on, and even accelerate.

And The Growing Difficulties In Finding Young Labour

The reason I say that we should expect worse to come in this regard is due to the underlying strong structural break in the Chinese population pyramid, a break which has been produced by many years of one child per family policy. Looking at those other canaries we have sent down the collective coalmine - Latvia and Estonia (and then, of course, Russia), then it does seem that push-comes-to-shove much sooner than any of us had been anticipating in the question of labour market tightening in the key 15 to 24 age group. In a way these could be thought of as the labour market equivalent of "first time buyers" in the housing market, since they tend to set the rates for others higher up the ladder. And just in case you have difficulty imagining how a country with a 750 million odd labour force could possibly have labour shortages, just remember that this labour force has been growing at an annual rate of 6 or 7 million to sustain the double digit growth rate, and even China can't find the additional people to keep explanding its labour force at this rate forever. And in particular it can't with generational cohorts which will soon be much smaller than those exiting the labour force at the upper age end, and with participation rates in the 15 to 24 age group bound to fall as people go for more and higher levels of education. Maybe it is worth bearing in mind here, that size doesn't mean you have less labour supply problems, au contraire you have more as time passes, and it is no accident in this regard that Russia and the US are the two countries with the largest annual migration needs. In theory we might expect the Chinese economy when it finally becomes the largest in the planet to also be the world's largest consumer of economic migrants, but this scenario hardly seems plausible.

As I say, 2008 could well be the year that inflation really gets a hold on China. Certainly the strong uptick in the latter months of 2007 is evident, as can be seen in the chart below.



Curiously this uptick coincides exactly with the peaking of the 15 to 19 age group, as you can see in the chart, and the decline in this age group from here moving forward is really quite dramatic, as you would expect from the drastic policy measure which was applied.




I have selected the 2022 horizon looking forward based on the fact that this is now known data. We can predict with a reasonable degree of accuracy just how many 15 year olds there will be in China in 2022, since they have now already been born. So we have a pretty good idea of China's new labour supply going forward. Obviously China can still get considerable growth by relocating the existing workforce across sectors to more productive ones. But the end of the labour intensive low economic value growth must now surely be in sight, and the big question is can China sustain inflation-free growth of the order of magnitude we have been seeing in recent years, bearing in mind that much of the recent growth in many of the higher growth developed economies - the US, the UK, Ireland, Spain - has been very labour intensive. My feeling is that it can't, this is why all those exhausted canaries swooning in Latvia have been so useful, and that we will see a slowdown in China which will not simply be cyclical, but rather structural. Possibly the moment of inflection (or tipping point) here will come around the time of the Olympic Games.

So, as I say the 15 to 19 age group has now peaked in China, and from here on in it is essentially downhill all the way, as far ahead as anyone can see. The truth is that no-one at this point in time knows what the consequences of this are going to be. But don't worry, since at least one thing is for sure: we are all just about to find out.