Why is it that Italy causes such a stir in financial markets when proposing a budget? Is it politics or is the stability of the financial system at stake? In our assessment, the best way to avert a crisis is to allow market forces to play out. Let me explain.
We all “know” Italy is in trouble. Well, before we jump to conclusions, let’s look at a few charts. Above is the Italian unemployment rate; it’s come off a high level, but still elevated. When policy makers call for structural reform, it is a codeword for increasing flexibility in the labor market, i.e. making firing easier. If firing workers is difficult, companies won’t hire workers. It’s also in this context that providing a so-called basic income is criticized by some as providing a disincentive to join the labor force (aside from cementing higher deficits for years to come). Basic income means you get paid, whether you work or not. In practice, the devil is in the details, as European workers have long enjoyed unemployment benefits; streamlining such benefits might actually save the government money. That said, Germany’s low unemployment, to a significant extent, may be due to the fact that welfare benefits were curtailed in 2002 (with a social democrat as chancellor), providing an incentive for workers to join the workforce.
Moving on, consumer confidence in Italy is actually doing just fine:
However, economic sentiment shows not everything is great – a problem as it suggests investments may be held back:
The big elephant in the room is Italy’s deficit. Italy’s total debt is larger than Germany’s, although the German economy is almost twice as large as Italy’s. As a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, Italy’s debt at 131.8% is rather high. Still, as can be seen from the chart below, Italy’s annual budget deficit has been shrinking for several years, most recently at 2.3%
Looking at the above chart, I can’t help but muse that weak or technocratic governments can’t get much spending done, but strong governments can. Italy currently has a populist government that intends to provide an economic stimulus. Keep in mind Italy is in its 66th government since 1946 (also note EU elections are coming up next year, with the coalition partners in Italy competing against one another on the EU stage).
The chart below depicts the spreads of French, Italian and Spanish 10-year bonds over that of Germany. Germany has the lowest bond yield in the Eurozone; as such, the spread is the difference in yield, reflecting the higher borrowing costs of these countries for 10-year debt:
As can be seen, Italian debt had rallied up to a few days ago when the market expectations of a deficit below 2% for next year dwindled as concessions to the coalition partners lead to an announcement that next year’s deficit will be 2.4% (note: this is still a draft budget; and it’s also a target deficit, the actual deficit may well be different).
