Quando acaba a crise no mundo?

Não existe ainda consenso sobre a resposta definitiva, mas já é possível concluir que esta crise é a pior desde 1945 - o Banco Mundial afirmou-o ontem, ou anteontem.

Existem três cenários possíveis de evolução para ela. Por definição, uma recessão traduz-se na queda do produto durante um certo período; o tipo de recessão é definido pela velocidade da queda e pela sua intensidade; e depois, a contrario, pelo que se passará aquando da recuperação- aqueles cenários são moldados pelas diferentes hipóteses quanto a isso. Fala-se de recessão em V, em U e em L. Uma recessão em V tem, relativamente aos outros dois cenários, uma velocidade de queda menor - o declive do primeiro ramo de V é menor do que o declive dos ramos correspondentes U e do L - e, provavelmente, a recuperação inicia-se mais cedo (é o que se defende que irá suceder nos Açores - ver aqui). Na recessão em U, a queda do produto é abrupta; a zona dos valores mais baixos do produto será mais profunda e mais larga, e a recuperação mais rápida. Uma recessão em L copia, na primeira fase, a recessão em U, mas, e essa será a pior notícia, a fase da recuperação será demorada, prolongando-se ao longo dos anos - a recessão em L poderá transformar-se, no entretanto, em depressão (a regra empírica para se definir uma depressão, é a de um valor acumulado de quebra do produto, de diversos anos, que ultrapasse os 10 p.p. negativos).

Neste momento, poucos acreditarão no cenário de uma recessão em V. A evidência aponta que estamos no ramo descendente do U - os gráficos atestam-o (ver aqui, por exemplo); as notícias que se sucedem continuam a ser, de modo sustentado, más - e a grande incógnita é se isto tudo termina, confirmando-se o U ou vamos para o L ( com a possibilidade deste descambar numa depressão). E isto sucede assim, porque existe muita incerteza de como irá evoluir a situação económica de alguns países do leste da UE, e de como, no seu conjunto, irão reagir a ela (e ao que se passará na Zona Euro) os EM da UE; porque existe muito incerteza quanto à efectiva eficácia das medidas já tomadas pela Administração Obama, não só no que respeita à reanimação da economia, como, principalmente, em relação aos problemas da banca norte-americana; porque não se pode descartar, no quadro da desconfiança e da anemia do sistema económico e financeiro mundial, a ocorrência de mais surpresas desagradáveis.

Existem, no entretanto, alguns sinais que, à primeira vista, são promissores: será o caso do comportamento da economia chinesa. A ver vamos.

As referências indicadas abaixo são o resultado de leituras feitas durante as últimas semanas, e são apresentadas das mais recentes para as mais antigas. Divirtam-se.

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  Uh Oh, I Don’t Like the Looks of This . . . The Big Picture (desenho inicial).
  

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  FT.com / Columnists / Wolfgang Munchau - An L of a recession – reform is the way out
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  "The US is dragging its feet over the financial sector. The European Union is doing the same, as well as failing to adopt policies that could shield it from an increasingly probable speculative attack. And judging by the state of preparations, the forthcoming Group of 20 summit is going to be a disaster. So it looks like it is going to be an L – not a V or a U. [...] My guess is that we are currently somewhere in the middle of the vertical bit of the L, but it is the horizontal bit that is the scariest. History never repeats itself exactly, but we know from economic history that financial crises are surprisingly similar.[... continuem a ler]"















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  Wall Street’s Year (and-a-Half) of Dangerous Living The Big Picture
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  "[...] The current decline is worse than the 1929-1932 rout. Based on the Wilshire 5000 Index, the market-cap of U.S. stocks is down $11 trillion since the Oct. 2007 peak, Marketwatch says. U.S. stocks have lost $1.6 trillion in market-cap since Barack Obama’s inauguration, Bloomberg reports. Nearly 50% of all stocks in the Wilshire 5000, the broadest index of U.S. equities, are trading for less than $5 per share, and 37% are under $3."














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  Above the fold Free exchange Economist.com
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  "The World Bank has highlighted the scope of the trouble for exporting nations, and indeed for the world economy as a whole in a report released over the weekend forecasting the path of global output. For the first time since the second World War, the global economy and global trade will decline in 2009, according to the Bank. The report underlines the point that even if America continues to measure its recession against the downturn of the early 1980s, for the world as a whole, this is the most severe economic crisis since the Depression and war of the 1930s and 1940s."













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  Op-Ed Contributor - Subprime Europe - NYTimes.com
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  "THE 1931 collapse of the Austrian bank Creditanstalt provoked financial panic across Europe and almost single-handedly turned a bad downturn into the Great Depression. [...]Well, believe it or not, Europe’s current crisis is scarier. For while losses on Eastern European debts may be only a small fraction of those on subprime mortgages, the continent’s problems are politically harder to solve, and their consequences may prove to be much worse. Much as in our subprime mess, Eastern Europe’s problems began with easy credit. [...] By 2008, 13 countries that were once part of the Soviet empire had accumulated a collective debt to foreign banks or in foreign currencies of more than $1 trillion. Some of the money went into investment, much of it into consumption or real estate. [...] Most of the Eastern European debt is held by Western European banks. [... continuem a ler]
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  













• Economist's View: Stiglitz: How to Fail to Recover
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  "Yet another voice saying the stimulus package was too small, and that the bank bailout plan is inadequate: How to Fail to Recover, by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Project Syndicate:[...]It is a relief that the US finally has a president who can act, and what he has been doing will make a big difference. Unfortunately, what he is doing is not enough. The stimulus package appears big ... but one-third of it goes to tax cuts. And ... Americans ... are likely to save much of the tax cut. Almost half of the stimulus simply offsets the contractionary effect of cutbacks at the state level. [...]"

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  Walker's World: The EU's solidarity test
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  "The financial crash is becoming a defining moment for the European Union, an economic shock that is testing the system's political solidarity to the limit. Europe's banks and governments have inched painfully over the last week toward recognizing the need to rescue the fallen. If they do so successfully, the EU will become a different and altogether more coherent body. If they fail, it may end up rather like the League of Nations in the late 1930s, a sad and toothless crone muttering memories of might-have-beens. [... continuar a ler]"

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  FT.com / Brussels - Global policy shortcomings will cost us dear
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  "Virtually every policy response to the crisis, on both sides of the Atlantic, seems to be falling short. My colleague, Martin Wolf, and the editorial column of the Financial Times have argued that the Obama administration’s financial sector rescue plan is dangerously inadequate. I would like to make the additional observation that the tendency to disappoint applies to almost every single policy decision by almost every government.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  [...] Why this extraordinary complacency? One reason is that policymakers are not sufficiently alarmed about the immediate economic catastrophe. To them, this is still what US economists call a “garden-variety recession”. They must have been told that global trade has been in freefall for four months now, contracting at a faster rate than during the Great Depression. Yet they still appear to believe that the economy will miraculously recover in the second or third quarter, which is when their stimulus packages will kick in. But these plans are nowhere near big or good enough to stop such a massive decline so quickly." [... continuar a ler]

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  Real Time Economics : Secondary Sources: Recovery?, Housing, Bonuses, Stocks, Seuss Recovery?:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  "Alan Blinder [...] “HERE’S the hard truth: Nobody knows when this recession will end. Economic forecasting is a dark art, and predicting when recessions begin and end is its weakest link. That said, my best guess is that growth will return in the fourth quarter of this year. Why? First, recessions don’t last forever… Housing must hit bottom at some point… Second, Washington’s large economic stimulus should add more than 5% to real gross domestic product over two years. Third, the price of oil plummeted from a peak of around $145 a barrel last summer to around $40 a barrel today. But here’s the rub. My forecast assumes that no other (big) shoes will drop. Sad to say, shoes have been dropping like rain.”

  "Meanwhile, Calculated Risk posted a series of economic charts that aren’t too encouraging."

• Failing the test - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  "It’s a depressing spectacle: on both sides of the Atlantic, policy-makers just keep falling short — and the odds that this slump really will turn into Great Depression II keep rising."
  
  

• Op-Ed Contributors - When Will the Recession Be Over? - NYTimes.com
  
  
  
  Onze economistas respondem.