Tag: Bank Negara

Categories
Economics

[2963] Is inflation the reason behind BNM hikes, at a time when the output gap is big?

Bank Negara raised its benchmark rate yesterday, from 2.50% to 2.75%. While the general reasoning is fighting inflation, I am not that convinced of it. My primary reason is, Bank Negara’s own analysis shows inflation (demand-push) is not a problem. Yes, consumer price index has been rising high, but most of those price increases are not something monetary policy can address without exerting damage to the economy.

The central bank regularly published estimates of output gap in the economy. Looking at the output gap is the easiest way to understand the economy quickly. To put it simply, the gap tells us about the capacity utilization of the whole economy. It is the difference between total (or maximum) capacity, and capacity used. When the used capacity is well below max, then inflation should be relatively low with unemployment high. When resources are not used up, there will be slack in the economy which is reflected in inflation and unemployment numbers. The same is true vice versa.

And based on the latest estimates published by Bank Negara back in March 2022, there is a huge slack this year (and estimated to be bigger than last year’s):

When the gap is big and when there are no other concerns, you would want to encourage the economy to keep going. You would want to close the gap, and approach full capacity (which is another way of saying full employment). And you can do this without much concern for inflation. That means, rates could be left low.

When you raise rates in these circumstances (as Bank Negara is doing), it means widening the output gap. You would lower demand-pull inflation (if there any), but since you have no control over supply-push inflation, you are just targeting the wrong part of the economy. You are pulling demand down almost immediately, but do nothing to the supply side, which is out of your immediate control (in fact, low rates improve supply, but not in the short term). Hence, widening the gap.

Beyond domestic considerations and on top of the current gap situation, there are concerns the global economy will go into yet another recession so short after the last. The US economy is close to experiencing one although its growth resilience so far has surprised many economists (and demand-pull inflation is problem there). Europe is almost certain to enter recession next year (war and gas supply are exacerbating supply-push inflation). Growth in China has been weak but there is some hope it would provide some cushion in an otherwise sullen world. When we look ahead, Bank Negara’s rate hike feels even more jarring and lags behind expectations, when they should be ahead of the curve.

So, when I read the Monetary Policy Statement and the references to inflation, I am not so sure inflation is the primary driver for the hikes. I have been suspecting so for a while now.

In my opinion, there are two other things at work that convinced the Committee to do what they did yesterday:

  1. It is about the ringgit. The currency along with many others out there have been under severe depreciation pressure due to US Federal Reserve’s series of drastic rate hikes. The end of easy money is upon us. And domestic benchmark rates are a big lever to relief the pressure partially: rising domestic rates would keep the difference with those in the US smaller than it would have been otherwise. And smaller difference means less depreciation pressure on the ringgit.
  2. The problem of zero-interest rate policy (ZIRP) and liquidity trap. Many conventional economists (of the 1990s?) believe monetary policy loses its potency the lower the rates go. And since Bank Negara Rates is already low by historical standards, maybe they are concerned about losing monetary influence and hoping to build up ammo for the next crisis.

In both cases, the cost of pursuing the goals will widen the gap today.

The relevant question is (especially with respect to the ringgit), how big would the gap be if the ringgit is allowed to depreciate beyond what the rate hikes allowed? Supply-pull inflation does hurt demand after all, and weaker ringgit means more imported inflation. Comparing the two gaps would help determine which policy to take.

I would love to read the minutes and see references to the gap, if any.

Categories
Economics

[2853] Bank Negara versus everybody else’s 40% housing loan approval rate

Bank Negara Malaysia is having none of it. They are tired of people blaming them (too much) for the generally weak residential property market in the country.

In its 1Q17 Quarterly Statistical Bulletin, BNM wrote housing loan approval rate over the past few years had not fallen, citing statistics that 74.2% of all applications were approved in the first quarter, and this number almost matches the 2012-2016 average. This is in contrast to the 40% approval rate often cited in the media, which originates from developers and other players in the private sector. With this as a proof, the central bank calls the 40% rate a myth.[1]

Except, BNM may have been too hasty in passing a conclusion and they may have overlooked an alternative method to calculate the approval rate.

The central bank calculates the ratio by taking the number of housing loan applications approved by all banks in Malaysia to the number of housing loan applications received by the banks during the same period.

But the 40% rate is calculated based on total value of all housing loans approved, to the total value of application in the banking system. Some analysts calculate it differently by lagging the value of approved loans by a month in an attempt to capture the fact that banks take several weeks to process and deliberate on any application. The lagging would change the number, but the overall trend would be pretty much the same.

You can see the rates under the value-approach here:

Housing loan approval rate among Malaysian banks, value-approach. Source: Bank Negara Malaysia

The 40%, in fact, comes from a database maintained by BNM. Specifically, you can get the 40% rate by taking the value of residential property found file 1.10 and divide it by the corresponding value found in file 1.12.[2]

So, the 40% it is not a myth. That particular rate has not been picked out of thin air. It is just that BNM may have overlooked the fact that there is a different way to calculate the rate. Instead of volume-approach, there is a value-approach alternative.

Which method is more appropriate, now, that is a different and a much more interesting  discussion altogether.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reservedMohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reservedMohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] The overall housing loan approval rate remains high at 74.2% (average 2012-2016: 74.1%). The approval rate is the ratio of the number of housing loan applications approved by all banks in Malaysia to the number of housing loan applications received by the banks during the same period. In 1Q 2017, banks approved a total of RM22.3 billion of house fi nancing to 90,137 borrowers. Of these, more than half was for buyers of affordable housing units priced below RM500,000. [Lim Le Sze. Debunking the Myth: Property Measures Have Led to Higher Loan Rejection Rates. BNM Quarterly Bulletin. Bank Negara Malaysia. Accessed May 26 2017]

[2] See the BNM Monthly Statistical Bulletin.

Categories
Economics

[2819] Minutes to the MPC a trade-off between transparency and frank discussion

Bank Negara Malaysia does not publish the minutes to its Monetary Policy Committee meetings, unlike the Federal Reserve in the United States. This keeps the rationale behind rate-setting decisions murky to outsiders sometimes.

A few economists in the past several years have bugged the governor on the matter. Acquaintance Jason Fong from RAM Ratings yesterday asked Zeti whether BNM would release its MPC minutes. She provided the same answer she gave last year — I think, also asked by Jason — that maybe in the future, the central bank would allow certain PhD students to go through the minutes for their thesis. The short answer is, disappointingly, no.

The demand for transparency goes by back to professional economists’ attempt at understanding various decisions taken by the MPC. Detailed minutes would reveal who thought what, and explain the MPC statements clearly. A more transparent process would ultimately helps in projecting the Overnight Policy Rate or other aspects of monetary policy.

But yesterday, I suppose since it was her last big briefing with all the economists in town, she felt a bit generous and volunteered a longer answer. It is a good response I think, highlighting the trade-off between transparency and frank discussion.

She reasoned having published minutes could keep participants from discussing various issues freely during the meeting. Some may even be encouraged to state something just to be on record without sharing what he or she really thinks. The end result could be one where not all views will be shared and not all views are actually honest, leaving the final decisions incapable of aggregating views of the committee members accurately.  Zeti said MPC decisions are currently reached through consensus, which means, I guess, no voting.

I understand her point. I would also add having secretive element into the process protects meeting participants from political backlash, much in the spirit of Chatham House Rule, where privacy is the key to robust and frank discussions.

While I do not disagree with the governor, I can think an instance where her point could be weak.

The MPC can get away with that reasoning because there is a lot of trust in the competency and the motive of the committee members. If the next governor is one who does not inspire confidence, I think the importance of transparency will outweigh the importance of having frank and robust discussions.

These days, after all, the trust deficit is not merely a mere gap anymore. It is a gaping hole.

While Zeti is respected in the industry and everywhere else, the next governor — as well as the Finance Minister (the office which effectively appoints the governor) who is also the Prime Minister of multiple conflicts of interest —presents us all with a big question mark.

Categories
Economics

[2702] Tighter lending requirement has its cost

I am unsure what to think about the recent move by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to tighten lending on the non-bank side of the lending system. While the statistics in that sector is scary when compared to the banks, the non-bank sector does provide financial services to the low-income earners. The financial services provided here are not the fancy derivative kinds but rather, it is pretty much bread and butter things: giving out vanilla loans for a lot of stuff.

Without these institutions, these low income groups would probably lack access to financial services that they are enjoying now. That in some way has to mean improved welfare because these loans have to be used for something, either investment or consumption. And investment is simply deferred consumption anyway, which improves welfare eventually.

I have to admit that there are some problems with lending in non-bank financial institutions (NBFI). There is an explosion of personal financing granted by NBFI but in the grand scheme of things, it is small compared to the safer banking sector. Still, in the personal financing sector, more than 50% of loans were granted by NBFI according to BNM in its 2012 Financial Stability and Payment Systems Report. What makes it more worrying is that NBFI has looser requirements compared to the banks. Also, average amount for personal financing given out by NBFIs in 2012 was RM68,000 per person while most of the borrowers are civil servants who do not make much. (Still, impaired loans ratio in 2012 was extraordinarily low in spite of looser requirements. That has to do with a government deduction program. While the program is useful in keeping the ratio low, one wonders what the disposable income level of these borrowers is given that the borrowers are mostly government servants who do not earn too much).

Nevertheless, what would happen if these finance services were restricted? Or tightened?

Some might not go to the banks because they would likely be unqualified to obtain loans. If you cannot qualify for loans from NBFIs, what are the chances of getting loans from a sector with tighter regulation?

Others might not borrow at all, which is probably the ideal outcome for advocates of tighter lending requirements. For those who used the loose requirement to buy unnecessary stuff like buying an iPhone, a widescreen television or an expensive laptop to show-off, then the non-borrowing outcome is good.

But if they borrowed money for education, for food or essentially for smoothing their basic consumption, tightening will make them worse off. In their case, those loans give them a chance to build their life. These loans give them a leg up. Making it costlier for them sounds exceedingly cruel.

The worst outcome is probably if they go to the shadowy part of the economy and that quite possibly means going to the loan sharks. Having borrowers migrating to the least regulated (or even unregulated) sector of the economy cannot be considered a success of regulation. Protection in the underground economy is not as robust in the ”upper ground” economy. There is no bankruptcy law there. Here, not only one increases the systemic risk rather than reducing it through regulation, there will like be human cost — that is costlier than being condemned to bankruptcy — by becoming victims of crime.

That said, the restrictions by BNM are not drastic and those regulations, while it may reduce lending by NBFI, it is unlikely to cause mass exodus from NBFI to elsewhere. So, it is hard to imagine if BNM’s move increases systemic risk at all.

Yet, a small group of individuals will probably do just that and this group may be worse off.

Here is the point I want to stress. There is human cost to the tightening and that has been ignored while the mass media praises the tightening.

Categories
Economics

[2496] Taylor’s OPR (more proof we did not need that stimulus)

Since the Monetary Policy Committee will be meeting next week, it is only natural to talk about the Overnight Policy Rate. It currently stands at 3.00% and it is likely to stay like that after the MPC meet. I personally (and professionally!) am betting a cut only in March as I think while inflationary pressure is receding, it is still high. Maybe, there is a bias in that expectation. What can I say?

But what would a customized Taylor’s rule say?

This particular Taylor’s rule is imperfect as the “equilibria” are somewhat squishy and not quite as methodical as I would like it to be, but in the coming weeks I should be able to calculate better coefficients to produce better hypothetical rate to compare with the actual OPR.

But observing the preliminary customized Taylor’s rule of mine, the OPR does seem to lag behind the rule. When I met some officials and economists from the Malaysian central bank a month or two back, they cheekily said they would not reveal the “natural rates”. The next time I meet them, I plan to cheekily share with them my Taylor’s rule, and say “you don’t have to tell me because I can read your mind.”

What I find interesting is that during the last recession, the Taylor’s rule suggests that Malaysia would have been in some kind of liquidity trap if the OPR had followed the rule closely. More interestingly, since the monetary policy was tight during that time, it could have been loosened more, leaving little if any need for  the 2008/2009 fiscal stimulus. Yet another proof against the Najib administration’s fiscal stimulus (or non-stimulus as Mr. Hisham, I would imagine, would put it).