Warum eine Schuldenannullierung der EZB nichts ändert
Vor einigen Wochen machte der offene Brief von rund 100 Ökonomen unter Führung von Thomas Piketty die Runde, wonach die EZB doch einfach die gehaltenen Staatsschulden annullieren sollte. Bekanntlich denke ich ähnlich.
Doch ändert so ein Schritt wirklich etwas? Paul De Grauwe erklärt, warum so ein Schritt nichts ändern würde bzw. nichts an der Lage der Regierungen:
- “When the central bank buys government bonds, say in the context of quantitative easing, it substitutes interest bearing government bonds for monetary liabilities (the money base typically taking the form of bank reserves). In the old days, these liabilities of the central bank were not remunerated. (…) In fact, over the last couple of years major central banks have been applying negative interest rates on these bank reserves, indicating how easy it is to reverse the remuneration policies.” – bto: In den USA haben die Banken für ihre Einlagen sehr viel Zinsen bekommen, was die Kapitalbasis stärkte und demzufolge eine bessere Strategie ist, als die Banken zu belasten, wie das in Europa passiert.
- “At the moment when the central bank buys government bonds, it creates ‘seigniorage’. This is the monopoly profit arising from the creation of money. This ‘seigniorage’ is transferred to the national government budget in the following way: the government pays interest to the central bank which now holds the bonds, but the central bank returns this interest revenue to the government. Thus, when the central bank buys the government bonds, de facto, the government does not have to pay interest any longer on its outstanding bonds held by the central bank. The central bank’s purchase of government bonds is therefore equivalent to debt relief granted to the government.” – bto: Jetzt kann man aber sagen, dass es immer Geldschöpfung ist, wenn der Staat Schulden macht (MMT). Es ist dann nicht der Akt des Ankaufs durch die Notenbank, sondern der Akt der Verschuldung.
“What happens when the government debt held by the central banks is explicitly cancelled? I will argue that economically nothing of substance happens.”
- “As long as the government bonds are on the balance sheet of the ECB, these bonds do not exist anymore from an economic point of view. This is so because, (…) a circular flow of interest payments is organised from the national treasury to the central bank and back to the treasury. So, the burden of the debt for the national government has become zero. The central bank can cancel that debt (i.e. set the value equal to zero) thereby stopping the circular flow of interest payments. This would not make a difference for the burden of the debt. Put differently, the profit of the money creation has been transferred to the government at the moment of the purchase of the bonds by the central banks.” – bto: oder eigentlich in dem Moment, wo der Staat Schulden gemacht hat?
- “(…) as long as the government bonds remain on the balance sheet of the central bank, it does not make a difference from an economic point of view at what value these bonds are recorded on the balance sheet of the central bank. These can be recorded at their face value, their market value, or they can be given a value of zero (debt cancellation): from an economic view this does not matter because the government bonds on the balance sheet of the central bank cease to exist.” – bto: Es ist wirklich nur rechte/linke Tasche. Es sei denn, die Notenbank – wie zuletzt die Bundesbank – schüttet nicht aus, um für etwaige Verluste zurückzustellen.
- “What matters is the size of liabilities of the central bank. This is the money base that has been created when the bonds were purchased. As long as the money base is kept unchanged, the value given to the government bonds on the balance sheet of the central bank has no economic consequence. If these bonds were to be set equal to zero (so-called debt cancellation) the counterpart on the liabilities side of the central bank would be a decline in equity (possibly becoming negative). But again, this is of no economic consequence. A central bank issuing fiat money does not need equity.” – bto: Das stimmt, aber die Frage ist, ob es ab einem bestimmten Niveau nicht eine Vertrauensfrage wird.
- “The problem may arise in the future if inflation surges and if the ECB wants to prevent the inflation rate from exceeding 2%. In that case it will have to sell the bonds, so as to reduce the money base (and ultimately the money stock). If the bonds are still on the balance sheet (because they have not been cancelled) the central bank will sell these. As a result, they will be held by the private sector and the burden of the debt of the governments will increase because the interest paid on the bonds will go to private holders who do not return it to the treasuries.” – bto: Aber auch da spielt es angesichts des Anteils, den die Notenbank hält, und der Zinsen nicht sofort eine Rolle. Es wird die Staaten bei der Neuverschuldung mehr treffen.
- “If the bonds have been cancelled, they cannot be sold anymore and the central bank will have to reduce the money base in another way. It could issue its own interest-bearing bonds in exchange for the outstanding money base. But this means that the central bank will have to pay interest in the future. As a result, it would transfer less profit to the treasuries. Again, no (or little) difference with outright cancellation. The conclusion here is that if the ECB wants to keep inflation at 2%, it does not make a difference whether it cancels the debt or not today.” – bto: Es bedeutet also, bei Fortsetzung der gegenwärtigen Politik spielt es keine Rolle. Aber eng verbunden mit dem Vorschlag der Annullierung der Schulden war ja die Aufforderung, im gleichen Umfang neue Schulden zu machen und das Geld für “gute Dinge” zu verwenden.
- “Things would be different if the ECB were to allow more inflation in the future; in other words, if it decided that it will do nothing when inflation exceeds 2%. Then it would not have to sell the bonds (or issue its own bonds). In that case, the higher inflation would reduce the real value of the government debt that is not on the balance sheet of the central bank, and that was issued during the last few years at very low interest rates. The government would gain. But note again that this gain would accrue to the government whether or not the debt was cancelled.” – bto: Der Nutzen liegt also in einer Entwertung relativ zum BIP und die wird durch die Annullierung nicht erreicht.
- “(…) the hundred-plus economists proposing debt cancellation have created the illusion that debt cancellation reduces the debt and therefore allows governments, unburdened by old debt, to issue new debt to finance great projects. (…) The illusion is to think that you can have debt relief of the same debt twice. (…) Only if the ECB reneges on its inflation commitment will debt cancellation permanently lower the government debt burden. But somebody will then pay for the inflation tax. One may still argue, however, that some more inflation is worth the price for permanently reducing the government’s debt burden. Maybe this is what the hundred-plus economists had in mind.” – bto: Vermutlich passt es doch zu der Forderung nach neuen Staatsausgaben und Schulden in gleicher Größenordnung.
