Der kommende wirtschaftliche Trendbruch
Ich habe schon vor einigen Wochen einen Beitrag zu den Folgen des demografischen Wandels auf die Kernaspekte der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung gebracht. Auslöser ist das neue Buch von Charles Goodhart und Manoj Pradhan, “The Great Demographic Reversal”. Mit beiden diskutiere ich an diesem Sonntag in der nächsten Folge meines Podcast.
Die FINANCIAL TIMES (FT) bespricht das Buch in einem Beitrag, den ich zum Anlass nehme, die Kernthesen nochmals zu wiederholen. Es ist eine ganz wichtige Entwicklung und genau deshalb kann man sich gar nicht intensiv genug damit beschäftigen:
- „Economics generally pays surprisingly little attention to demography, even though the ageing and shrinking of the population in so many parts of the world is a striking and new phenomenon in human history. Take Italy. Last year the country recorded the smallest annual number of births since the Risorgimento of the mid-19th century and nearly a third of its population is over 60. There has been an absolute decline in the number of people in Italy since 2015, even accounting for net inward migration. It is an extreme case, but the rest of the west, most of eastern Europe and China will follow.“ – bto: Nein, auch Deutschland ist auf diesem Weg. Das wird gern verdrängt.
- „The implication of modern economic growth models — that the real growth rate clearly depends on the number of workers, either through the ideas in their heads or the skills they deploy — is little discussed. (…) What are the implications of this unprecedented natural experiment (…)?“ – bto: Mit Blick auf das Wirtschaftswachstum können wir es bereits beobachten. Italien stagniert auch deshalb seit zwei Dekaden.
- „Goodhart and Pradhan contrast the accelerating ageing and shrinking of the global labour force with the conditions that have arisen as a result of the big increase in global labour supply from China’s entry into the world economy overlapping with the baby boomers being at the peak of their powers around the turn of the century. Given that the “China shock” has been identified as a major cause behind everything from the hollowing out of middle-class jobs in the west to the financial imbalances driving the 2008 crisis, this is a big moment.“ – bto: Es war aber auch die Folge einer politischen Wahl, die Folge des Angebotsschocks aus China mit Schulden zu kaschieren.
- „They make some strong predictions. The old, at their late stage in the life cycle, don’t save, but spend, so savings “gluts” of the kind thought to have paved the way for today’s low interest rates will vanish as populations age. Nominal interest rates will rise and so will inflation — mainly because of labour shortages and wage pressures. Rather than secular stagnation — stubbornly low growth resulting from low investment compared to savings — the world economy will experience secular stagflation, as productivity and real growth will continue to be much slower than in the past yet with prices rising faster. That means living standards will at best continue to grow slowly, and for many will be eroded further by inflation.“ – bto: Das ist kein Umfeld der sozialen und gesellschaftlichen Stabilität. Es wird massive Verteilungskonflikte geben und deshalb müssen wir schon jetzt die Weichen anders stellen. Was zu tun wäre, ist Gegenstand meines neuen Buches.
- „(…) the authors’ (…) omit other forces driving economic change, so it is probably wiser to think of the book as a thought experiment rather than a forecast. It acknowledges technological change but does not engage much with the scope for a turnround in productivity growth, nor with the deflationary tendencies clearly associated with technologies as they bring down prices of many goods and services.“ – bto: Es vernachlässigt aber auch so teure und drastische Programme wie das Erzielen der CO2-Neutralität, was vor dem Hintergrund dieser Entwicklung massiv inflationär wirken muss.
- „The book makes the assumption that there will be no change in social safety nets and retirement ages, and so it can ignore what might happen in the world outside economic models. Yet there are many countries where the female participation rate could increase — including in the US — especially post-pandemic. Policies such as maternity pay and pre-school provision affect women’s employment and indeed birth rates, although of course it takes another 20 years for this to increase labour supply.“ – bto: In Deutschland ist die Erwerbsbeteiligung von Frauen schon deutlich gestiegen, was bedeutet, dass in diesem Hebel nicht mehr so viel Potenzial liegt.
- „Retirement ages may rise further. And welfare and pension provision are likely to be limited in ways that increase saving by younger workers even as pensioners start to dis-save. It certainly seems possible that the shrinking number of young people will draw the line at supporting their elders at current levels, not least given all the other massive generational inequities they are facing.“ – bto: Das wiederum halte ich für eine äußerst optimistische Annahme. Die sozialen Verwerfungen werden die Politik eher dazu zwingen, mehr Schulden zu machen und diese bei den Notenbanken abzuladen.
- „The Great Demographic Reversal (…) presents a powerful, well-argued challenge to the ‘mainstream’ view that low growth, inflation and nominal interest rates are here to stay. Above all, its message that everyday economics needs to take demography seriously is surely correct. Whatever its implications, the demographic reversal has started.“ – bto: Mich überzeugt die Argumentation durchaus.
