The Bank of Japan is getting into industrial policy
The Bank of Japan has shrugged off its fig leaf of independence and is getting involved in fiscal policy. And won't be the only central bank to do so, says John Stepek. It's another step down the slippery slope we started on decades ago.
The most important divide in the governance structure of our secular era – the theoretical separation between independent central bank and state – is being eroded on a daily basis.
It’s growing ever harder to tell the difference between fiscal and monetary policy.
And that matters, because you get to vote on one of them, and you don’t get any say at all on the other.
Subscribe to MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Once again, the Bank of Japan is leading the way.
Central banks are getting into industrial policy
The Bank of Japan is launching a “green” lending facility. The mechanism will be used to provide cheap funds to infrastructure (and other) projects that contribute to Japan becoming carbon neutral by 2050.
So how will this work? The Bank of Japan will offer interest-free funds to banks for “climate-linked loans or investments”, reports Bloomberg. There will be “no limit” to “rolling over the funding” – in other words, these are effectively permanent loans.
So commercial banks will have an incentive to make sure they are lending to “green” projects because they’ll get the money for nothing from the central bank, meaning they should be able to make bigger profit margins on their loans or investments. They’ll also get charged less for holding money with the central bank.
The Bank of Japan also said it will buy “green” bonds that are denominated in foreign currencies (it already buys overseas bonds).
This is a pretty interesting development. Central banks have been talking about getting involved in “green” finance for a while. The Bank of England has been told to take “green targets” into account when looking at which corporate bonds to buy. And the European Central Bank (ECB) has been talking along similar lines.
The idea here (as with ESG – environmental, social and governance – investing) is to drive up the cost of funding for companies that engage in carbon-intensive activity. In some ways, it’s a “nudge” along the lines of sin taxes.
However, this is also pretty controversial stuff. Central banks are (on paper) meant to be politically independent. That’s what monetary policy is all about: the central bank raises or lowers interest rates depending on the needs of the broad economy.
This is usually defined as keeping inflation at a certain level (usually 2%, a target basically invented by the New Zealand central bank in the late 1980s and then picked up by everyone else – Merryn reckons she found the paper they based it on, as we discussed in this podcast a month or so ago).
Once you start getting into the idea of favouring certain sectors or industries, that’s entering the political arena. That’s fiscal policy – making decisions about what to spend on, rather than simply the general level of money floating around the economy.
Indeed as, Germany’s Bundesbank boss Jens Weidmann – a perpetual thorn in the side of his more utopian-thinking ECB colleagues – argued before acquiescing, this move to make funding cheaper for “green” business is essentially a form of industrial policy, and that’s something the electorate should have a say in.
A giant green fig leaf
Of course, you can argue that a lot of this is pure semantics. The central bank derives all of its power and authority from the government, as well as its mandate, so the idea that they are in any way politically independent is nothing more than a fig leaf. But those things matter too.
On the one hand, in practical terms, it is 100% true to say that the Bank of England is just an arm of the government, and that when it buys gilts using quantitative easing (QE), it’s exactly like the government writing a cheque to itself.
On the other hand, one of the reasons this can happen without everyone freaking out about it is because we mostly accept that there are enough institutional checks and balances to prevent a government from using this money-magicking ability to do anything stupid, and to avoid relying on it in all but the most dire circumstances.
So you can do it after a financial crisis and you can do it after a pandemic, but you probably should try to avoid doing it for the rest of the time.
Of course, the trouble is that emergency measures have a habit of becoming permanent fixtures, particularly when any negative consequences are not immediately obvious. We’ve already seen that with QE (if it hasn’t caused hyperinflation yet, then why worry about doing more?), and we may see it with masks.
So the increasing politicisation of central banks is just another step down a slippery slope we embarked on decades ago.
How is the Bank of Japan justifying this? As always, there’s an emergency reason for it all. “Climate change could exert an extremely large impact on developments in economic activity and prices as well as financial conditions from a medium- to long-term perspective.”
This is all true (and true of many more potential future events that aren’t climate change) but it is also a very good example of a very large fig leaf indeed.
What constitutes a green project? We don’t know, because we now face too much of an emergency to spend time arguing about the framework, apparently. Is it really such great policy to be driving up the cost of our main energy sources when we don’t really know if we have effective replacements yet? Sorry, it’s an emergency; don’t have time to talk about that.
In some ways though, these are in themselves all side issues. It’s clear that the next step is to go from preferential interest rates for green projects to the central banks directly funding them, because it’s an emergency. That step will come if and when it turns out that we still have sclerotic growth even in the wake of all the latest post-pandemic upheaval.
At that point, it’ll be all about using the green infrastructure “emergency” to “stimulate” the economy, by building solar-powered monorails to nowhere rather than roads to nowhere or airfields that will never be used.
Anyway – central bank mission creep is just yet another reason why I expect the ultimate denouement of this cycle to be inflationary rather than deflationary. As for the investment impact – that’s worth keeping an eye on.
On the one hand, more money piling into green projects does suggest a “green” bubble will be very likely at some point. On the other, a side-effect of raising the cost of capital for fossil fuel companies is to also raise the return that investors expect (higher risk means higher returns). So stick with your oil companies for just now. We’ll have more on green bubble candidates in upcoming issues of MoneyWeek magazine. Get your first six issues free here.
Sign up to Money Morning
Our team, led by award winning editors, is dedicated to delivering you the top news, analysis, and guides to help you manage your money, grow your investments and build wealth.
John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.
He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.
His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.
-
Premium Bond winners – who won the November £1 million jackpot?
NS&I unveils November’s Premium Bond winners. Who bagged the jackpot and what other prizes are on offer?
By Vaishali Varu Published
-
Will turmoil in the Middle East trigger inflation?
The risk of an escalating Middle East crisis continues to rise. Markets appear to be dismissing the prospect. Here's how investors can protect themselves.
By Philip Pilkington Published
-
UK wages grow at a record pace
The latest UK wages data will add pressure on the BoE to push interest rates even higher.
By Nicole García Mérida Published
-
Trapped in a time of zombie government
It’s not just companies that are eking out an existence, says Max King. The state is in the twilight zone too.
By Max King Published
-
America is in deep denial over debt
The downgrade in America’s credit rating was much criticised by the US government, says Alex Rankine. But was it a long time coming?
By Alex Rankine Published
-
UK economy avoids stagnation with surprise growth
Gross domestic product increased by 0.2% in the second quarter and by 0.5% in June
By Pedro Gonçalves Published
-
Bank of England raises interest rates to 5.25%
The Bank has hiked rates from 5% to 5.25%, marking the 14th increase in a row. We explain what it means for savers and homeowners - and whether more rate rises are on the horizon
By Ruth Emery Published
-
UK wage growth hits a record high
Stubborn inflation fuels wage growth, hitting a 20-year record high. But unemployment jumps
By Vaishali Varu Published
-
UK inflation remains at 8.7% ‒ what it means for your money
Inflation was unmoved at 8.7% in the 12 months to May. What does this ‘sticky’ rate of inflation mean for your money?
By John Fitzsimons Published
-
VICE bankruptcy: how did it happen?
Was the VICE bankruptcy inevitable? We look into how the once multibillion-dollar came crashing down.
By Jane Lewis Published