Understanding Affordable Housing Finance

Page 40

Home@ix Finance Affordable Finance A Framework of Understanding.

Home@ix financeAffordable housing

1. Home@ix is a Modular Residential Manufacturing System applying mass production Line supply chain and assembly line Technologies to the production of affordable homes. Founded by Roger Lewis a veteran urban regeneration expert with a long history in the Regeneration of London Docklands both as a consultant and principal.

2.

Roger Trained as a Chartered Surveyor and qualified as anAssociate of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in 1990 having worked for Shell UK, The PrudentialAssurance Company, London Shop PLC, Hillier Parker May and Rowden . Roger HAS BEEN SELF Employed Since 1990.

Executive Summary.

The crisis in affordable housing has been well known and increasingly acute since the Mid 1990’s. Provision of suitable housing has traditionally been through a mixture of LocalAuthority Provision, Private Landlords and Through Home ownership supported by Mortgage Society Home loans ( Mortgages) With the Liberalization of the UK housing market since the early 1980’s and light touch regulation of the finance sector the Financing of and distribution of types of housing has changed considerably.

Land use policy through the planning and regulation framework, Government policy and Regulation of Rent levels , financial firms and so forth , availability of land for development .Demand for accommodation near employment opportunities all present a myriad of dynamic variables which are often treated as discrete problems withing their own boundaries with different sets of Experts andAgendas all explaining their estimation of the problem often pulling if opposing and contradictory directions.

There are two broad categories of Residential Property Homes for rental and Homes for Owner occupation. Rental homes for social housing provision exist as a fact of life for those without the means to become owner occupiers or as temporary longer term accommodation for people with a temporary need to be in a community for longer than a guest spell of time but shorter than justifying the costs of acquisition inherent in making a long term mortgage commitment.

Whether properties are built for Rent or for sale Finance plays a very large role in both funding development and providing long term mortgage finance

The Modern Property Market is based around the repayment of privately

3. 4. 5. 6.
7. created debt money. This is distributed through the banking system Banking interests operate a cartel setting the terms and conditions for issuing fresh debt money short term for development and longer term for mortgages. This aspect of the Housing Market is usually looked at through the lens of Interest Rates and rarely with an appreciation of the Quantity of available credit being distributed by the Monopoly suppliers of that credit.
8. The system of Debt based Money creation and the System of Taxation operate in Tandem as set out in the Paper submitting evidence on tax policy to the Treasury Select committee on Tax Policy.
“Legitimate government spending generally provides infrastructure, services and welfare payments to resident people and businesses. To

benefit from this government spending, a person must own or rent a home or operate a business in the area. The monthly amount people pay to occupy their homes is set in the marketplace, based upon location and the value of natural, commercial and government amenities provided. Landlords charge monthly for these location amenities while home sellers charge a lump sum.”

9. Following the Financial Crisis of 2008 and the subsequent Sub Prime fall out the emphasis has been on Borrowers and their action s and motivations and not on the Lenders and the Dynamics surrounding Credit creation . This lacuna in analysis leads to a misdiagnosis of an affordability and allocation problem in The Housing market not a Supply Shortage(1).

(1) https://theecologist.org/2008/aug/02/radical-carbon-tax-reform

10. The UK’s ratio of residential mortgage debt to GDP has fallen from 79% in 2009, but at 68% it is still the fourth highest in the EU.64 P.58 Whitepaper Fixing Our Broken Housing Market.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/ uploads/attachment_data/file/531242/family-resources-survey-201415.pdf

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/ uploads/attachment_data/file/600465/family-resources-survey-201516.pdf

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/ uploads/attachment_data/file/791271/family-resources-survey-201718.pdf

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/ uploads/attachment_data/file/874507/family-resources-survey-201819.pdf

Moduloft, Analysis for 5x 5% 25-35 Reluctant 10% Mortgage Wrapper.

1. Summary.

Home@ix analysis the UK Mortgage Market andAffordability research Mortgage Lending as a total proportion of the money supply and the breakdown of the Mortgage lending concentrating to the Top half of the market? (Breakdown Trend?)

Economics indicators Trading Economics sheet 7

2. Mortgage Risk, Liar loans and the Subprime crisis has dominated policy commentary and we analyse Arrears across all lenders and see that Since peaks in quarter 3 2009 the trend line for arrears is approaching the Building society lows at the beginning of the Crisis period sample.

FSA arrears by sector sheet 1

3. Average loan sizes have grown from 65k in 2002 to 184k YTD 2020 with the split between new home loans and remortgages being around an average 60% 40% split with other loans at a lever of a third of what they were at the beginning of the sample down from 10% to 3% from the start to the end of the sample.

Summary Mortgage Approvals average loan size sheet 3 3.b ( All values are not inflation adjusted?)

Liar Loans and Subprime sacred cows?

2.20 While non-income verified mortgages were originally aimed at niche audiences, such as the self-employed or the lowest risk applicants, they gradually became more widely used, with around half of all mortgages applications in 2007 and 2008 being processed without income verification. This is illustrated in Exhibit 2.4. While stringent criteria may have originally been applied to such applications, for example in terms of loan-to-values (LTVs), these criteria were relaxed over time. In 2007 15% of applications above 95% LTV did not have income verified, as shown in Exhibit 2.5. p.17 Exhibit 2.4: Proportion of mortgages where income was not verified

4.

5.Thinking outside the box Exploring innovations in affordable home ownership Christine Whitehead and Peter Williams

The latest initiative from the Prime Minister is similarly not an affordable housing product. Its ambition is to help a further two million households to become home owners as part of his Generation Buy strategy.

Click Generation Buy Link for Consultation document First Homes.

Affordability p.6.

6. Affordability is the biggest barrier to home ownership – and while this is partly due to a shortage of housing supply, low interest rates and high rents have limited the ability for young people to save the deposit they need to buy a home.

7. Over the last 23 years, the average house price in the UK has increased from £58,854 in August 1996 to £235,298 in November 2019, quadrupling the deposit needed to buy. 4

8. More young people are spending longer renting their home, often paying a higher amount in monthly rent than a monthly mortgage payment would be.

5 And those that can’t rent are staying with their parents for longer; unable to start a home and put down roots in their community.

From the Outside the Box report What is the Market doing?

“As any lender almost regardless of size will remind you –there are few if any rewards for being first into a market and all the internal instincts of firms work to hold back innovation at a product level – if no one else is doing it then is it a good idea? Typically, product development in this area is triggered partly by a government request/demand from senior executives and/or by a significant shift in the wider environment, eg. around energy efficiency. When it comes to innovation the big lenders are probably technologically rather than financially constrained for taking innovation forward. Big lenders are hugely advantaged by their use of the internal ratings based (IRB) approach to capital weighting and big volumes of low risk lending ensures they get very favourable weightings and thus a competitive advantage”

“Generalising, it would seem big firms are less likely to take risks even though they have the greater capacity to do so. By contrast small firms are the opposite - they may lack the scale of resources and capacity to take on significant market innovation and risk”

Irrational Exuberance. (Schiller) Housing Market Fundamentals including Debt. From Shiller’s Irrational Exuberance to The Covid19 Debt Bomb.#COP26 Moduloft Primer.

p.23 Influenza? Spanish or Chinese?

House Prices and Fundamentals 355 years of Evidence.p435 of Moduloft Doc. Amsterdam Long series analysis of Real Property Prices Indexed back to 1650.Tulips and Bubbles

p.35 p.36

Aggregate Theory of Credit. ( Werner)

THE MONEY SYNDROME is therefore unique among books on economic topics. There are three titles that it could be compared with:

•Margrit Kennedy, Interest and Inflation Free Money. This book which was largely inspired by Helmut Creutz’ work, can be seen as a more popular summary of THE MONEY SYNDROME. The fact that this book has been translated into eighteen languages up to now may indicate a growing worldwide interest in the topic.

•Gero Jenner, Das Ende des Kapitalismus. Triumph oder Kollaps eines Wirtschaftssystems?, Frankfurt/M. 1999, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag

(Link in German only: The End of Capitalism. Triumph or Collapse of an Economic System?) While relying on data from Helmut Creutz’ book as a standard work of reference, the author lays emphasis on international scale industrial and sociological effects.

•Bernard Lietaer, The Future of Money, 2001, Random House. Impressed by a rapid worldwide increase of alternative models of economy, such as local exchange trading and barter systems, he probes deeply into the psychological and sociological implications of money. As a former manager of the Belgian National Bank Lietaer also promotes an innovative global reference currency similar to Keynes’ proposal of “Bancor”.

LAGOM/FÖRENAS A NEW; COMPLEMENTARY, FEDERATED, EMBODIED ENERGY, CURRENCY. PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF DOUGH. ETHEREUMS MOST IMPORTANT CONVERSATION EVER #WEB 3 EMBODIED ENERGY MONEY.

How does the increase in interest rates affectthe house building industry? House building is traditionally a sector particularly encumbered with debt and is, hence, interest sensitive. Scarcely a tenement or a home is ever built without borrowed capital. The indebtedness of the housing industry in total (statistically, private mortgages have also been included) in Germany at the end of 1998 amounted to 1,925 billion DM.

If one assumes an interest rate of six per cent, the housing sector had to bear an ininterest burden of 116 billion DM for external financing for the year 1998, which divided over all the 37 million apartments, gave an average of 3,100 DM p.a., that is, per month around 260 DM. In calculating the rent, this interest rate on the borrowings is normally added to that of the equity capital. Together, this results in an ininterest burden that is almost double the amount, which is about 500 to 700 DM per accommodation unit per month. Relative to the rental costs, an interest cost share of about 70 to 80 per cent results.

In Switzerland apartments are mortgaged to a particularly large extent. This has to do with the long-term housing credits that are common there and which are frequently

not subject to regular repayment. With a population of 7.3 million, 3.5 million apartments and a total mortgage burden of 600 billion Swiss francs, every citizen is burdened with a mortgage debt amounting to 80,000 CHF and each apartment with 170,000 CHF. At an interest rate of four per cent (the Swiss rates are two percentage points below the German rates), it would be 6,800 CHF for one year and 570 CHF per month just for servicing mortgages.

Because a huge proportion of the rent is interest, changes in the interest rates in the housing industry have particularly serious consequences. A one percentage point increase in mortgage interest rates causes, according to a well-known rule of the thumb estimate, an increase in the rental costs from 10 to 14 per cent. This means that an increase, for example, in the mortgage interest rate from six to nine per cent, as was the case in Germany from 1988 to 1990, leads to an increase in the interest share of rental costs of 50 per cent for newly built houses! Such rent increases may affect even existing tenancies, namely, those for which the capital was borrowed at flexible interest rates.

The effects of changes in interest rates on the rent per square metre are shown in figure 50, similar to the calculations in Chapter 8, Box H.

Given the circumstances we have, we cannot avoid the existing high share of interest in rents because if one can no longer reckon with a cost-covering rent realization, the house will not be built - not even by a cooperative or unionised housing company, unless, of course, the state somehow reduces the cost by servicing the capital. The

Figure 50

complete public housing-support, with which rents today are discounted, is there basically only to secure the interest claims of the lenders or of the building or property owners, this security being provided by the state.

http://www.realrld.com/blog/a-horse-a-horse-my-kingdom-for-a-horse Sharp falls in real estate prices have a detrimental impact on the health and soundness of the financial sector and on the financial situation of organizations, individuals and of individual households, by affecting credit ratings, the value of collateral, and the debt to equity ratio (7 ).

Footnote.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/7870049/8545612/KS-FT-16001-EN-N.pdf/9e4bbc9b-8c6f-44a9-b686-1083a7a8fa0f (7 )

An important related use that is not directly expressed here is as part of the Banks Capital adequacy requirements regime. Basle II and III, agreed upon by the members of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision—a committee of banking supervisory authorities that was established by the central bank governors of the Group of Ten countries in 1974—stipulate particular approaches in terms of capital coverage for commercial property. Basel II primarily relates to the required level of bank loss reserves that must be held by banks for various classes of loans and other investments and assets that they have whilst Basel III primarily relates to controlling the risks for the banks of a run on the bank by requiring differing levels of reserves for different forms of bank deposits and other borrowings. In some situations / jurisdictions these capital adequacy requirements

can be expressed in terms of ‘marked to market’, i.e. based on recording the price or value of a property or portfolio that reflects its current market value rather than its book value, the former being based on the most current market valuation updated using appropriate property price indices.

11.1.

11.1.1.

11.1.1. The Residual Approach for Valuing a Commercial Property A country’s stock of commercial properties is a component of its national wealth. Hence, a price index is required for commercial properties so that balance sheet estimates of real wealth by component can be formed (195). SNA Balance Sheet estimates of national wealth distinguish between the structures component of commercial property and the land component. Thus in order to construct Balance Sheet estimates for national assets, it will be necessary to decompose commercial property values into separate land and structures components and to construct price indexes for each of these components.

The approach requires information on overall property values at a specific point in time, along (196) with imputed values of the structures that sit on the properties at the same point in time. This imputed value is taken to be the current replacement cost for the structure and it can be estimated using normal national income accounting techniques (197). Thus an imputed value for land can be defined as property value minus imputed structure value. In order to form a constant quality price index for a commercial property, estimates of property value and structure value would have to be available for the two points in time that are being compared, along with estimates of the amount of structure depreciation that took place between the two periods. The information required and the computations that are necessary to form a commercial property price index will be laid out in some detail in what follows, under the assumption that assessed values, or appraised values, for a sample of commercial properties are available. The analysis below is taken from Diewert and Shimizu (2014) (198).

CPPIs and Decomposition for Land and structure components The Residual Approach for Valuing a Commercial Property

Diewert and Shimizu postulated that the assessed asset value of REIT n in quarter t, Vtn, was equal to the sum of three components: • The value of the land plot VLtn for property n in quarter t; • The value of the initial structure on the property, VStn, and • The value of the cumulated (but also depreciated) capital expenditures on the property made in prior periods, VCEtn. Thus they assumed that the following asset value decomposition held for property n in period t (201): (11.1) Vtn = VLtn + VStn + VCEtn ; n = 1, ... ,50 ; t = 1, ... ,22. The appraised values, Vtn, on the left hand side of equations (11.1) were known and the problem is to determine plausible values for the components on the right hand side of equations (11.1). Moreover, in order to form constant quality property price indices, it is necessary to decompose the values on the right hand side of equations (11.1) into price and quantity components. The methods used by Diewert and Shimizu will be explained below.

Decomposing an RPPI into Land and Structures Components

8.1 In Chapter 3 it was mentioned that for national accounts and CPI purposes, it will be useful or necessary to have a decomposition of the residential property price index (RPPI) into two components: a quality adjusted price index for structures and a price index for the land on which the house is built. The present chapter outlines how hedonic regression can be utilized to derive such a decomposition. Hedonic regression methods were discussed in Chapter 5.

Commercial

price indicators: sources, methods and issues 173

property

Decomposing an RPPI into Land and Structures Components

Hedonic models and real estate valuation[edit]

In real estate economics, hedonic pricing is used to adjust for the problems associated with researching a good that is as heterogeneous as buildings. Because buildings are so different, it is difficult to estimate the demand for buildings generically. Instead, it is assumed that a house can be decomposed into characteristics such as number of bedrooms, size of lot, or distance to the city center. A hedonic regression equation treats these

attributes (or bundles of attributes) separately, and estimates prices (in the case of an additive model) or elasticity (in the case of a log model) for each of them. This information can be used to construct a price index that can be used to compare the price of housing in different cities, or to do time series analysis. As with CPI calculations, hedonic pricing can be used to correct for quality changes in constructing a housing price index. It can also be used to assess the value of a property, in the absence of specific market transaction data. It can also be used to analyze the demand for various housing characteristics, and housing demand in general. It has also been used to test assumptions in spatial economics.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, or USPAP, provides for mass appraisal standards to govern the use of hedonic regressions and other automated valuation models when used for real estate appraisal. Appraisal methodology treats the hedonic regression as essentially a statistically robust form of the sales comparison approach [7] Hedonic models are commonly used in tax assessment, litigation, academic studies, and other mass appraisal projects.

Inflation and the mysterious UF Inflation and the mysterious UF

Object 1 Everywhere you go in Chile you'll see 2 letters: UF. When i first arrived in this country way back in December 2003 (i can't believe it was so long ago) i just ignored it, thinking it was just some bizarre Chilean way of making things more complicated than strictly necessary. I still think the same but now i actually understand what the hell the UF is all about.

UF stands for Unidad de Fomento. It's an inflation index and once you get your head around it it's quite a useful tool when calculating how much things cost.

Let's have an example:

You want to buy a house. You look on an agent's website and see the price is listed at 1500 UF. Just what does that mean? Well, One UF is equivalent, today, to 18792.93 Chilean Pesos. So that means that the house is valued at 1500UF X 18792.93 which means 28,189,395 Pesos (or about us$54k).

The UF level is adjusted every day. Inflation in Chile runs to around 3-4% per year. Tomorrow's UF is expected to be around 6 Pesos higher, at 18798.36 Pesos. That means the same house tomorrow will cost: 18798.36 X 1500UF=28,197,540 or 8,145 pesos more than yesterday (about us$16).

Unidad de Fomento

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unidad de Fomento

ISO 4217

Code CLF

Denominations

Plural Unidades de Fomento

Symbol UF

Demographics

User(s) Chile

Issuance

Central bank Banco Central de Chile

Website www

Valuation

Inflation Inflation adjusted

The Unidad de Fomento (UF) is a Unit of account used in Chile. The exchange rate between the UF and the Chilean peso is constantly adjusted for inflation so that the value of the Unidad de Fomento remains almost constant on a daily basis during low inflation. It was created on 20 January 1967, for the use in determining the principal and interest in international secured loans for development, subject to revaluation according to the variations of inflation. Afterwards it was extended to all types of bank loans, private or special financing, purchases and investments on instalments, contracts, and some special situations. It is also used in legal standards such as the par value of stock and capitalization of companies, and fines.

It has become the preferred and predominant measure to determine the cost of real estate, values of housing and any secured loan, either private or of the Chilean government. Individual payments are made in Chilean

pesos (the country's legal tender), according to the daily value of the UF. A similar currency unit for use generally in payment of taxes, fines, or customs duty is the Unidad Tributaria Mensual (UTM) (literally: monthly tax unit).

https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Latin-America/Chile/Price-History

Chile’s successful housing program

Chile’s housing shortage has been reduced by a very successful housing policy. The Ministry of Housing and Planning (Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo or MINVU) was created in the 1970s, and has dominated the housing sector since. It is the country’s largest real estate firm, and its second largest mortgage bank.

The special law Decreto con Fuerza de Ley 2 (DFL-2) encouraged affordable housing of less than 140 square metres (sq. m). DFL-2 properties are exempt from income tax, and enjoy 50% off the Real Estate Tax for corresponding periods, according to land area.

Sources:

• Real Housing Price Index (Chilean Chamber of Construction): https://www.cchc.cl/centro-de-informacion/indica dores/indice-real-de-precios-de-vivienda

• House hunting in…Chile (The New York Times): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/realestate/househunting-santiago-chile.html

• Building permits (Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas): https://www.ine.cl/estadisticas/economicas/constru ccion/edificaci%c3%b3n-superficie-autorizada

• Building Permits (Chilean Chamber of Construction): https://www.cchc.cl/centro-de-informacion/indica dores/permisos-de-edificacion

• Moderate rental yields in Santiago (Global Property Guide): https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Latin-America/Chi le/Rental-Yields

• World Economic Outlook Database (International Monetary Fund): https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2019/01/weodat a/index.aspx

• Interest rates (Central Bank of Chile): https://si3.bcentral.cl/estadisticas/Principal1/Excel/EMF/ TASAS/excel_EN.html

• Chile Cuts Benchmark Rate to 9-Year Low as Economy Weakens (Bloomberg): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/article s/2019-09-03/chile-cuts-benchmark-rate-to-nine-year-low-aseconomy-weakens

• Chile Government Budget (Trading Economics): https://tradingeconomics.com/chile/governmentbudget

• Chile Economy Grows Slowly as Government Readies Stimulus (Bloomberg): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl es/2019-08-19/chile-s-economy-sees-slow-growth-as-governmentreadies-stimulus

• Chile Government Debt to GDP (Trading Economics): https://tradingeconomics.com/chile/governmentdebt-to-gdp

https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/download-manager-files/ Housing%20Finance%20Mechanisms%20in%20Chile.pdf

Chapter 3 The Evolution of Housing Finance in Chile An Overview of Credit’s Role in the Financing of Housing The focus in Section II was on social housing and the analysis of the key role played by the state in its financing via large direct demandoriented subsidies aimed mostly at disadvantaged households. In Section III the emphasis will be on the second pillar sustaining the financing of home ownership in Chile, that is, the role played by the domestic financial markets in the provision of long-term credit to households, including lower middle income families receiving government subsidies for the down payment on a home but which still require some debt financing to become homeowners. It was said earlier that Chilean families and government housing policies favour home ownership over housing rental. However, for this preference of owning one’s home to materialise, it is crucial that institutional creditors be able and willing to massively supply long-term credit to individual households and assume the risks inherent in such credit operations.

Mortgage originators need to simultaneously control excessive credit risk and avoid assetliability mismatches in their balance sheets. Sound lending practices are a must, but in addition the Chilean experience has shown that another constant for sound mortgage financing, independently of the instrument being used, is the quality of the collateral backing such lending (i.e. conservative Loan-To-Value ratio practices) and the presence of a legal and regulatory framework that enhances the value of holding real estate collateral (i.e. expedited foreclosure procedures). As important as having sound mortgage origination practices is to keep interest and liquidity risk exposures well under control. That requires mortgage originators having a clear strategy for timely accessing long-term funding in local currency in the local capital market. Family savings are an important contribution to the typical housing finance package for all income groups. The Chilean experience has shown that the promotion of family savings, particularly among Lower to Middle Income households, is important. The constancy and level of family savings often is a determining factor in the selection of subsidy beneficiaries under the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism’s housing programmes.

In the money option to default. ?

Variable Definitions and Measures

Empirically it is important to assess how far the call option to prepay and the put option to default are ‘in the money’. Given that the value of embedded options is a complex function of stochastic variables then it is difficult to measure precisely the intrinsic value of an option;

and so ‘indirect’ measures are used to evaluate the likelihood of the call or put option being ’in the money’. We follow Pennington-Cross and Chomsisengphet (2007), and use an estimate of the current loan to value ratio (current loan/value ratio) on a mortgage holder’s property to represent the extent to which the put option is ‘in the money’2

. The more likely the put option to default is ‘in the money’ (loan to value ratios greater than one), the higher

19

the probability of a household defaulting on the mortgage debt.

To indicate the extent to which the call option is ‘in the money’ we again follow PenningtonCross and Chomsisengphet (2007) and use the change in interest rates since the date of

origination (libor change). It is expected that the call option to prepay has a higher value when interest rate volatility is high and therefore there is an incentive to keep the option, the likelihood of prepayment then being less. Given that the typical index rate for subprime mortgages is 3 month Libor we use the Libor index as the representative rate. For the UK it is expected that endogenously determined financial behaviour is more likely in the case of prepayment than default, so as a further measure of the value of a call option to prepay the standard deviation of Libor (std dev libor-a moving standard deviation over 12 months) is included as an independent variable3

Negative Equity / Subåprime neigbourhood.

Previous notes folder on Subprime mortgage default

Building Bond, Land Finance Bond, Carbon Savings and Embodied Carbon Bonds, (Work in Progress.)

Distribution of Package bond based Finance product (Work in Progress.)

Through High LTV 95% Default insurance backed ( Rob Thomas?) (Work in Progress.)

LALAINE C. DELMENDO | November 28, 2019

https://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/United-Kingdom

UK's housing market remains subdued, amidst uncertainty surrounding Brexit

The housing market started to recover in 2013, with nationwide house prices rising by 22.8% (14% real) from 2013 to 2018. London had the biggest price growth of 35.3% (25.7% real) over the past five years.

The UK’s and particularly London’s house price rises have been fuelled by four factors:

Strong immigration and population growth, especially in London.

Interest rates at record lows, with a large expansion of the money supply through "quantitative easing".

The City of London continues to boom.

Construction activity remains weak (though this is less true of London).

Raising housing supply and other reforms

To address supply shortages, the government spelt out housing market reforms in a housing white paper published in February 2017. Measures include:

Councils will be required to make up-to-date plans to meet housing demand;

The maximum time between planning permission and the start of building construction is to be lowered from three to two years;

Small and medium-sized developers are to be boosted through a £3 billion (US$ 3.94 billion) home building fund;

Upward extension of buildings in urban areas is to be encouraged;

Standard tenancies are to be made more ‘family-friendly’ by raising the tenancy length to three years or more in new build homes;

Letting agents’ fees are banned.

Sources:

•Investigation into Starter Homes (National Audit Office): https://www.nao.org.uk/report/investigation-into-starterhomes/

•Bank Rate maintained at 0.75% - November 2019 (Bank of England): https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policysummary-and-minutes/2019/november-2019

•None of pledged starter homes built, says watchdog (BBC News): https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50296672

•Mortgage Trends (UK Finance): https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/ data-and-research/data/mortgages/lending-trends

•Largest mortgage lenders (UK Finance): https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/data-and-research/data/ mortgages/largest-mortgage-lenders

•FCA introduces rules to free ‘mortgage prisoners’ from costly deals (The Herald): https://www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/17999377 .fca-introduces-rules-free-mortgage-prisoners-costly-deals/

•Mortgage prisoners may finally be able to switch to a better deal after the City watchdog relaxes its rules (This is Money): https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/a rticle-7621619/Mortgage-prisoners-finally-able-switch-betterdeal.html

•Housing white paper (Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government): https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ housing-white-paper

•UK Stamp Duty Rates: https://www.stampdutyrates.co.uk/

•Proportion of overseas based landlords halves since 2010 (Hamptons International): https://www.hamptons.co.uk/news-research/press -releases/august-18-2018/

•Foreign investors snapping up properties while British landlords forced out of market (The Telegraph): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/buy-to-let/over seas-investors-back-british-landlords-squeezed-thanks-buy/

•Capital gains tax on property (Which?): https://www.which.co.uk/money/tax/capitalgains-tax/capital-gains-tax-on-property-avuq96u1500f

•London Luxury Homes Face New Hit as U.K. Plans Foreign Buyer

Tax (Bloomberg): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/201 8-09-30/may-plans-to-hike-u-k-property-tax-for-foreign-homebuyers

•INSIGHT: Stamp Duty Land Tax for U.K. Property—Next Steps (Bloomberg Tax): https://news.bloombergtax.com/dailytax-report-international/insight-stamp-duty-land-tax-for-u-kproperty-next-steps

•Anti-corruption summit: Cameron plans to name foreign property owners (BBC News): https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36272225

•New EU anti-money laundering directive means added burden for estate agents (Property Wire): http://www.propertywire.com/news/uk/new-eu-antimoney-laundering-directive-means-added-burden-estate-agents/

•´Dirty money´: U-turn as Tories back plans to make tax havens transparent (The Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/01/u k-to-introduce-public-ownership-registers-for-overseasterritories

•UK Adopts EU Anti-Money Laundering Legislation (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project): https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/8363-uk-adopts-eu-antimoney-laundering-legislation

•Dirty money ´targeting UK prestige services´ (BBC News): https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50168247

•EU proposes new anti-money laundering body in wake of scandals (Financial Times): https://www.ft.com/content/d810c676-fb34-11e9-98fd4d6c20050229

•Housing association tenants in Midlands to be given right to buy (The

Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/16/ho using-association-tenants-in-midlands-to-be-given-right-to-buy

•Housing association tenants to get ‘shared ownership’ Right to Buy, Jenrick reveals (Inside Housing): https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/housingassociation-tenants-to-get-shared-ownership-right-to-buy-jenrickreveals-63503

•Help to Buy (Hamptons International): https://www.hamptons.co.uk/publications/marketinsight-april-may-2019/market-indicators/

•When do Help to Buy Isas stop and why are they being scrapped? (The Sun): https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/10212593/when-help-tobuy-isa-stop-why-scrapped/

•Overseas landlord numbers up for first time since 2010: Hamptons (Mortgage Strategy):

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/overseaslandlord-numbers-up-for-first-time-since-2010-hamptons/

•Tenant Fees Bill provisions to come into effect June 2019 (National Landlords Association): https://landlords.org.uk/ news-campaigns/news/tenant-fees-bill-provisions-come-effectjune-2019

•Letting agent fees banned in Autumn Statement (Financial Times): https://www.ft.com/content/ee2803a6-b0d8-11e6-a37cf4a01f1b0fa1?mhq5j=e1

•The Economy (Hamptons International): https://www.hamptons.co.uk/publications/marketinsight-october-november-2019/economy/

•World Economic Outlook Database (International Monetary Fund): https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2019/02/weodat a/index.aspx

•Unemployment rate (aged 16 and over, seasonally adjusted) (Office for National Statistics): https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket /peoplenotinwork/unemployment/timeseries/mgsx/lms

•CPIH Annual Rate 00: All Items 2015=100 (Office for National Statistics): https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceind ices/timeseries/l55o/mm23

•Brexit: All you need to know about the UK leaving the EU (BBC News): https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics32810887

•Gross Domestic Product: Quarter on Quarter growth: CVM SA % (Office for National Statistics): https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticprodu ctgdp/timeseries/ihyq/qna

•UK GDP growth likely bounced back in Q3 but more weakness ahead – Forex News Preview (XM): https://www.xm.com/uk-gdp-growth-likelybounced-back-in-q3-but-more-weakness-ahead-forex-newspreview-112066

•UK growth ´slowest in almost a decade´ (BBC News): https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50373505

The principles of tax policy

Written evidence submitted by the Systemic Fiscal Reform Group

1 The Systemic Fiscal Reform Group was formed in Cambridge in 2008 by a small group of individuals led by Dr Adrian Wrigley Operating as a "think tank", we study the systems of taxation, money, subsidy and welfare as they operate in practice as well as the political economy behind them We develop and advocate reforms we believe can be implemented by governments around the globe to improve living standards while reducing environmental damage.

2. Dr. Adrian Wrigley is an entrepreneur trained in natural, engineering and computer sciences. Now working as a financial trader, he promotes a scientific understanding of the fiscal system as a whole with a view to establishing a new reform agenda

He is the principal author of this evidence

Executive Summary

3 Historically, tax policy appears to have been based on the principle of serving powerful interest groups at the expense of the public interest. The adverse consequences of this include damage to the economy, political integrity and public well-being. These worsen over time as the private interest embed themselves in the political system expanding their power until serious failures become apparent

4 Reform of the tax system has become imperative, moving from the present system of taxation for private interests to one where the public interest is served instead Achieving this is only possible if the fundamental principles of tax policy and its path to reform are based both on economic and political realities Most existing components of the tax system are neither necessary, nor fit for serving the public. They should be considered obsolescent and rapidly phased out.

5 The modern tax system is based around the repayment of privately created debt money This is transferred through the banking system mainly from economic producers according to the market value of their production or labour The direct effect of this choice is twofold. Firstly, the suppression of productive economic activity. Secondly, the promotion of the banking interests which operate a cartel setting the terms and conditions for issuing fresh debt money needed for public spending and payment of taxes Unemployment, poverty, debt bubbles, poor public services and inflation are the follow-on consequences

6 Legitimate government spending generally provides infrastructure, services and welfare payments to resident people and businesses To benefit from this government spending, a person must own or rent a home or operate a business in the area The monthly amount people pay to occupy their homes is set in the marketplace, based upon location and the value of natural, commercial and government amenities provided. Landlords charge monthly for these location amenities while home sellers charge a lump sum

7 Public interest is harmed greatly by two aspects of the tax system Firstly the granting the power to issue the the money to pay taxes (the medium of taxation) to a private banking cartel. Secondly the collection of the tax according to production contributed rather then benefit conferred to the ultimate beneficiaries, the land/homeowners

8 Reform of the tax system will be unsuccessful unless based on sound economics and sound politics Economics dictates the abandonment of the ill-defined "Ability to Pay" principle in favour of the "Benefit Principle", recognising that the benefits of legitimate government accrue to land/home owners and those controlling natural resources Politics dictates that proposals creating many obvious losers cannot be implemented

9 The Systemic Fiscal Reform Group recommends a fundamentally new approach to reforming the tax system – elective reform Taxpayers should have the right to opt out of the current system into a new system designed around sound principles

10 Allowing people to switch out of the harmful tax system for a much sounder, simpler system would allow the economy to recover rapidly solving the toughest financial, human, environmental and economic challenges

Principles of tax policy are economic and political

11 National success can only be sustained with a sound system of taxation Sound taxation must be based on policy principles thoroughly understood by those empowered to maintain it These must be based on an understanding of the economic principles underlying taxation Equally important is an understanding of the political principles behind taxation

Understanding taxation

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Taxation is central to the interests of every citizen, business and special group Each group has its own economic interests and perspective foremost when it analyses the economy and promotes a particular viewpoint Politicians, economists and business people rarely promote analysis which conflicts with their group interests Clarity and analytical integrity generally work against private interests and are usually absent

13 In this response, it is assumed The Committee is seeking to further the public interest, even where this may conflict with the private interests which usually dominate the analysis and debate. This will pose a major challenge to those who have learned their analysis exclusively through channels devoted to promoting private interests, and must "unlearn" erroneous but pervasive assumptions and principles

What are the economic principles of taxation?

14 Taxation is at the economic core wherever government supplies significant services such as civil and military protection of property rights, infrastructure, education or healthcare. The UK is no exception.

15. Taxation comprises three fundamental economic parts:

l Creation of the medium of taxation and issue into the economy

l Distribution of the medium of taxation through the economy

l Collection of the medium of taxation

The medium of taxation

16 Over the course of history, the medium of taxation has changed several times Under the earliest systems, taxation was paid in cattle, later moving to grain – generally rice or wheat (tithe systems) or labour (corvée systems) Whenever payments moved to metal tokens issued by the rulers, a money system was born. These tokens were usually made out of scarce and distinctive metals to prevent counterfeiting – silver, sometimes gold The tokens would move through the economy through economic exchange, but would be demanded back by the rulers as the means of collecting taxes Wooden tally sticks were the most successful English tax medium The public demand of tokens to pay taxation ensures a sustained demand and maintains their exchange value across the economy

17 Modern taxation systems are still based around the creation, distribution and collection of tokens, but the tokens now take electronic rather than physical form. These tokens are bookkeeping entries in the banking system. The structure of the taxation system and the economy it controls is determined by the rules under which these electronic bookkeeping tokens are created, distributed and collected Coins and notes are still issued in small quantity, but are subsidiary to to the banking system's bookkeeping entries

18 The economic power of the tax system is determined both by how and where in the economy the medium of taxation is created and where and how the medium is collected

19 Contemporary governments grant the exclusive power to issue the medium of taxation to a state sanctioned banking cartel

The banking cartel comprises a central bank and private member banks The central bank is responsible for price fixing, information sharing, promoting member interests and preventing member defaults Serving the public interest is not a primary goal of a central bank. The cartel holds the exclusive power to set the price of and issue the medium of taxation. Governments generally prohibit the issue of alternative media for exchange and mandate payments of taxes only in the cartel-issued medium

20. The collection of the medium of taxation is under direct government control. Most tax is collected whenever economic production takes place This places a burden on producers, who must acquire the medium of taxation directly or indirectly from the private banking cartel The economic effect of taxation is dependent on the rules for calculating the amount of tax which is paid, regardless of who the tax is collected from Usually, the person from whom the tax is collected can pass the burden of acquiring the medium on to others, generally by paying less for economic inputs, but sometimes by charging more for economic outputs

21. The spending power derived from taxation is shared between the government and the private banking cartel. This spending power is transmitted through the economy by banking cartel to their favoured associates, and by the government and their favoured associates The system is effectively one of dual sovereignty since the sovereign powers of tax collecting and the corresponding issue of money is shared between the government and the banking cartel This is the most distorting aspect of tax policy

Change the medium of taxation

22 The spending power derived from taxation should accrue wholly to the government, and not be shared with the private banking cartel The only satisfactory ways of achieving the involve abandoning the collection of taxes through the medium of money created by fractional reserve lending Taxation defines and underpins the money system

23 Principle : Taxes should only be payable in government issued money

l Money should be issued into circulation exclusively by the government when it pays wages, suppliers, pensions and welfare

l Money should be withdrawn from circulation by the government when taxpayers pay taxes

l Money created by private businesses should no longer be accepted in payment of taxes

Introduce free markets, abandon production penalties

24 Principle : Taxation should not interfere with free markets in labour, goods and services

25 The following taxes depend on economic production and therefore act as production penalties: Income Tax, National Insurance, VAT, Corporation Tax, CGT, Stamp Duties

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By design, they impair the free exchange of labour, goods and/or services They conflict with the above principle They have no role in any sound tax system, and constitute major distortions in the economy Harmful and unnecessary, they should be phased out

Charging the beneficiary

27 Businesses generally charge each customer a market price for the supply of goods or services which benefit that customer The market price balances the overall forces of supply and demand The government should use the same principle for taxation Understanding the nature of "the customer" is a central issue

28 The legitimate "customers" of government activity are the owners of houses and land in the area governed The owners of houses benefit from nearby roads, schools, hospitals, parks, police, flood defences The owners are the ultimate beneficiary whether or not the house is owner-occupied or let to tenants People renting property may receive these amenities, but pay for their value in their rent. Renters should not pay tax towards these amenities in addition to paying rent for them as at present.

29. Principle : Taxation should only be levied on the ultimate beneficiaries of government, in particular, owners of land and houses

30 An alternative principle is sometimes advocated, that of "ability to pay" Superficially attractive, this concept is entirely without merit. The ultimate burden of tax is transmitted through the economy so the suppliers of economic inputs whereupon the ability to pay cannot be measured for taxation Whenever tax exceeds the ability to pay production is lost or transfers to the black market

31 Where the government confers a benefit exceeding the tax paid for the benefit, an implicit subsidy exists Implicit and explicit private subsidies tend to undermine the public interest goals of tax policy and should to be avoided

32 Principle : Taxation should be levied for the full market value of the benefit conferred by government, so avoid implicit subsidies

Welfare payments must be considered with tax

33 Principle : The welfare system should be fully integrated with tax

34 The welfare system functions in ways similar to the tax system, but with the financial flows reversed While taxes like Income Tax act as production penalties, welfare payments such as Jobseeker's Allowance function as idleness rewards. Means tested welfare payments reward profligacy, penalise saving There is no role for rewarding idleness in a sound tax and welfare system Means tests induce fraud and bureaucracy while disempowering citizens

35. Principle : Means-tests and employment tests should not be part of policy

36. The consequence of excluding means tests and employment tests is that any welfare payments should be made equally to all persons This concept has been developed by welfare reform advocates who call it a "Citizens' Income", or a "Citizens' Dividend" It is a universal welfare comparable to universal healthcare or universal school education

37. Principle : A universal "Citizens' Dividend" should be paid equally to all

38 Such a Citizens' Dividend does not distort economic incentives because it is independent of any changes to economic behaviour It neither rewards nor penalises economic activity, nor does it reward any particular family structure It empowers ordinary people facilitating their investment in study, business or family life It improves negotiating power with employers, and eliminates the need for a statutory minimum wage

39 A Citizens' Dividend is exactly analogous to the dividends paid to shareholders of a business

In this case, it is the return to citizens as shareholders in society It is paid for entirely from payments made by the beneficiaries of government amenities and services

Political reality must be fundamental to tax policy

40. Countless efforts at tax reform have been attempted across the globe. Each has been guided by principles and political pragmatics The result has been a dramatic increase in the complexity of tax and welfare systems to the point where ordinary people cannot understand it Even top experts consistently fail to predict how tax revenues, welfare payments will develop over time Individuals generally have mistaken concepts about how much they pay, how much they are entitled to and how proposals would affect them

41 Because people are generally mistaken about the impacts of policy changes, any reforms proposals quickly produce anxiety and opposition, while vested interests stoke deliberately confusion and misdirect political opinion.

42 Proposals like Land Value Taxation (LVT) have been discussed for many decades, but failed to overcome the political difficulties and obstacles presented by the vested interests

43 Tax complexity has become a major problem to deal with, but attempts to simplify the system have consistently failed A new approach to tax and welfare reform is essential.

44 A tax and welfare system based around the fundamental principles here is very simple Money is spent into circulation by government for the supply of services to property owners Money is collected from property owners according to the full monthly amenity value of the site locations. The surplus is distributed as a dividend to citizens on an equal per-capita basis.

45 Principle : Changes to existing tax policy create instability, confusion, political uncertainty, financial risk and must be minimised

46 The transition of the tax system to one based on these fundamental principles must avoid creating economic and financial turbulence. It must avoid giving out big windfalls at public expense. And it must avoid creating losers and people who believe they are losers

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47 The new principle of tax reform is the creation of a right to opt in to a new system of taxation and welfare People should not receive a big windfall from the public when they choose to join the new system and leave the old As people leave the old system, it will become clear to all that the new system is superior, and in consequence the transition can be rapid This principle overcomes political barriers

48 It will not be usually be possible for a person to leave the entirety of the old system in a single step The transition involves contracting with government not to pay particular types of tax in exchange for accepting an equivalent burden.

49 Payments from property owners should be regular, index linked to market values and based upon contract law, not on politically determined tax laws Payments are independent of legal residence or personality Citizens, corporations, nondomiciles are treated equally, removing a major cause of distortion and complexity. Establishing such payment contracts should be voluntary act which releases the person from defined obligations under the old system

50 The Systemic Fiscal Reform Group calls these payment obligations on property "Location Value Covenants" (LVCs), which are legal covenants running with the land They obligate the owner to pay government a defined perpetual revenue stream

Recommendations

51 We recommend The Committee l investigates the principles and implementation of Location Value Covenants l investigates the impact of private money issue in the tax system l investigates the Citizens' Dividend as an alternative to welfare payments l makes public interest the sole determinant of tax principles and rejects the advice of vested interests in the financial, real estate and accounting industries l declares the present tax system to be not fit for purpose and beyond repair l adopts the principles contained here for transitioning to a new system

Conclusion

52 Development of the tax system has been constrained by political reality and driven by the demands of vested interests in finance and real estate The fundamental principles of tax policy should explicitly incorporate the money system and the welfare system The tax system is not fit for purpose and is beyond repair It should be replaced by an efficient, neutral and distortionfree system based around clearly defined recurrent payments from owners of land, immovable property and natural resources based on contract law. Means-tested welfare should be replaced by a Citizens' Dividend distributing the financial surpluses of government arising from such reforms

53 The transition to a new, principled tax system should be on an "opt-in" basis where people can choose to permanently leave the old system when they can benefit from so doing. The effect of such a transition would be an rapid and dramatic revival in economic performance without battling political headwinds

54 The principles outlined here fully meet all the objectives of the OECD tax report and the Mirrlees Review They meet Smith's canons of taxation and adhere to orthodox and common heterodox academic analysis They are comprehensible and achievable January 2011

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Utilising the Quantity Theory of Credit to Understand the Causes of the 2007 Financial Crisis

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© Copyright Maurice Starkey 2018 and available for reproduction under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license. Download this as a Microsoft Word document.

Contents

Introduction

1. Financial Deregulation

2. Credit money creation by banks and building societies

3. The Quantity Theory of Credit

4. Central Bank Policies to Manage the 2007 Financial Crisis

4.1 Should the Bank of England reduce interest rates in response to this type of financial crisis?

4.2 What type of quantitative easing is appropriate?

Bibliography

Footnotes

Introduction

This paper applies insights from Richard Werner’s publications to consider the causes of the financial crisis, and The Bank of England’s policy responses. It will begin by explaining some of the important elements associated with financial deregulation, and how these changes unleashed banks power to create new credit money. I will then use the Quantity Theory of Credit to explain the causes of the 2007 financial crisis. This will be followed by a consideration of the policies adopted by The Bank of England following the 2007 financial crisis, together with Richard Werner’s criticisms of those policies.

This paper will argue that the primary constraint on United Kingdom economic development is an imbalance between the funds allocated by financial markets for investments in activities that generate output of additional new goods and services in the economy that increase GDP, and allocation of capital for speculation in property and financial assets. Since the 1980s bank credit creation has expanded at a considerably faster rate than growth in GDP (please see figure 1), which indicates an increasing amount of bank credit money creation being channelled towards the purchase of existing financial and property

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assets that are not included within GDP, with the resulting misallocation of capital sowing the seeds of a future financial crisis. These imbalances cannot be rectified by continuing to allocate large quantities of new credit money to purchase existing assets for speculation. Instead, there needs to be a reallocation of new credit money to facilitate productive investment in businesses.

1. Financial Deregulation

Growth of Sterling M4 became increasingly disconnected from the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United Kingdom economy following banking deregulation introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government, following the 1979 general election (please see figure 1). Bank deregulation was predicated on the belief that banks were mere financial intermediaries, and failed to recognise that banks are an important source of new money creation. Financial deregulation created a context that promoted a rising level of indebtedness that led to rising debt servicing costs, which placed increasing economic stress on the real economy’s ability to finance the resulting debt servicing costs.

Banks’ primary lending comprised of non-mortgage lending to companies, until financial deregulation occurred in the 1980s. Until the 1980s domestic mortgage financing in the United Kingdom was largely restricted to building societies, which were separately regulated. A Joint Advisory Committee placed quantitative restrictions on building societies mortgage lending, defining the total value of mortgage lending that should be completed each year (Ryan-Collins, Lloyd, & Macfarlane, 2017, p. 130).

Prior to the Competition and Credit Control (CCC) reforms being introduced in 1971, The Bank of England rationed bank credit through quantitative ceilings on bank advances, and provided qualitative guidance that influenced the type of lending conducted by banks. In 1971, the Competition and Credit Control reforms were introduced that enabled clearing banks to directly engage in wholesale money markets, whereas previously banks had only been able to trade in wholesale money markets via their finance house subsidiaries, or via discount houses. This regulatory change enabled banks to acquire money directly from the money markets, rather than being dependent on the central bank providing central bank reserves and cash. The competition and credit control reforms also replaced the eight per cent cash reserve ratio and 28% liquidity reserve ratio with a single 12 ½ per cent liquidity reserve ratio. The 1971 reforms changed The Bank of England’s role to managing interest rates, moving the central bank’s focus towards use of the price mechanism (rate of interest)[2].

Margaret Thatcher’s government removed foreign exchange controls in 1979 (Ryan-Collins, Greenham, Werner, & Jackson, 2011, p. 50), which opened the banking sector to increased foreign competition, and

Figure 1: Broad Money (M4) relative to GDP at market prices (1980 to 2018)[1]
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would later enable deregulated building societies to access overseas funding from international wholesale financial markets. Removal of exchange controls enabled organisations that were not authorised UK Banks to conduct foreign exchange transactions, leading to an explosion in international capital flows that caused the United Kingdom to become an important international centre for foreign exchange (including Eurodollar) transactions.

Further financial deregulation in 1980 led to the removal of the Bank of England ‘corset’ (supplementary special deposits scheme) that previously restricted banks’ ability to conduct domestic mortgage lending, and enabled banks to effectively compete with building societies mortgage provision for the first time (Ryan-Collins, Lloyd, & Macfarlane, 2017, p. 132; Bank of England, 1991). Abolition of the corset was a consequence of the removal of foreign exchange controls in 1979, which enabled banks to acquire funds offshore, and made the corset ineffective. The liquidity reserve ratio that banks were required to hold was gradually reduced from 12 ½ per cent in 1971, until eventually becoming effectively voluntary (RyanCollins, Greenham, Werner, & Jackson, 2011, p. 51). Quantitative restrictions on building society lending were also removed, as a consequence of the 1986 Building Societies Act that allowed building societies to borrow a proportion of their funds from wholesale money markets, and also enabled building societies to demutualise and convert to a bank (Ryan-Collins, Lloyd, & Macfarlane, 2017, p. 133). The reforms caused the breakdown of the building society interest rate cartel. The resulting increase in competitive intensity within the financial sector led to falling interest rates, and a declining interest rate spread (spread refers to the difference between the percentage cost of bank deposits and percentage return from loaned funds).

The Stock Exchange was deregulated on 27 October 1986, which is often referred to as the ‘Big Bang’. It enabled outside, and often foreign, ownership of firms that were members of the Stock Exchange. Deregulation enabled international banks to acquire stockbroking and jobbing firms in the City of London, and removed the requirements for stockbrokers and stockjobbers (stockjobbers create markets in shares) to be separated. It also removed the separation between investment banking and deposit-taking institutions that was still enforced in America through the Glass-Steagall Act, which caused American banks to increase their presence in the United Kingdom. Removing the separation between investment banking and deposit-taking institutions potentially enables investment banks to acquire new credit money from another part of the banking group that conducts deposit-taking activities, in order to fund trading positions in derivatives, commodities, property and financial assets.

The introduction of buy-to-let mortgages in 1996 enabled investors to purchase houses for rent, and caused private landlords to increase their share of the housing stock from 9.4% in 2000 to 19 per cent of the United Kingdom housing stock in 2014 (Council of Mortgage Lenders, 2016). Landlords generally receive a yield of between 3% and 5% per annum (Council of Mortgage Lenders, 2016).

Internationalisation of bank lending led to the development of an international regulatory framework. The Basle Committee on Bank Supervision was created in 1974 to harmonise international banking regulations, which led to the 1988 Basle Accord introducing minimum capital requirements, and risk weighting of assets. The risk weighting of loans to non-financial firms is double the risk weighting of secured mortgages on residential property, and a consequence of the Basle risk weightings is that banks can earn fees and net interest margins on double the amount of lending to real estate relative to lending to non-financial firms, with the same capital base. The first Basle accord produced significant global growth in both mortgage lending on residential property and bank leverage in the 1990s (Ryan-Collins, Lloyd, & Macfarlane, 2017, p. 135).

2. Credit money creation by banks and building societies

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My previous paper (Starkey, 2018) explained how banks create credit money, and that the majority of money in the economy (sterling M4 liabilities to the private sector) comprises bank deposits (please see figure 2). The credit creation theory of banking proposes that individual banks can create money, and banks do not solely lend out deposits that have been provided to the bank. Instead, the bank creates bank deposits as a consequence of bank lending (McLeay, Radia, & Thomas, 2014; Werner R. A., 2013; Ryan-Collins, Greenham, Werner, & Jackson, 2011). Consequently, the amount of money that a bank can create is not constrained by their deposit taking activities. The repayment of existing debt destroys money, by reducing bank loans (asset side of balance sheet) and customer deposits (liability side of the bank balance sheet).

There was a significant increase in bank lending between 2000 and 2007, when the annual percentage increase in total lending by United Kingdom financial institutions exceeded 10% per annum (please see figure 3). Increased lending caused bank deposits to increase, creating new credit money that produced an annual increase in money supply of between 6% and 10% per annum between 2000 and 2007 (please see figure 4). Commercial banks introduction of new credit money into the economy is creating new purchasing power within the economy that did not previously exist, which significantly increases demand in sectors of the economy to which credit money is allocated.

Figure 2: Bank deposits in relation to cash in circulation. The Composition of Sterling M4 Liabilities to the private sector, excluding intermediate other financial companies (OFCs)[3]
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Figure 3: Annual percentage change in total lending by United Kingdom financial institutions (1999 to 2017)[4]

3. The Quantity Theory of Credit

When increases in money supply as a consequence of new credit money creation by banks exceeds the growth of GDP (growth in gross domestic product) transactions in the economy, there are likely to be inflationary consequences. However, the consequences of credit money creation depend on the sector to which credit money is allocated.

The Quantity Theory of Credit presented by Richard Werner (Werner R. A., 1997; Werner R. A., 2013; Ryan-Collins, Greenham, Werner, & Jackson, 2011, pp. 109 - 110; Werner R. A., 2005, p. 226) proposes that the impact of bank lending for GDP transactions will depend on the purpose of lending. If lending is directed towards consumer credit that increases consumption, there is likely to be an increase in consumer price inflation as a consequence of increasing aggregate demand relative to the aggregate supply of products. Whilst bank lending for business investment to private non-financial corporations and unincorporated businesses encourages growth in economic activity Investment that increases output of goods and services included in GDP transactions suppresses inflationary pressures in the economy, as a consequence of increased production of goods and services, and also raises the incomes of factors of production. However, only 15.5% of lending by

Figure 4: Growth in bank deposits during the year as a percentage of money supply at the beginning of the year (1998 to 2017)[5]
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financial institutions is being directed towards investment by non-financial firms and unincorporated businesses (please see figure 5).

Despite an increase in overall lending by financial institutions following the 2007 financial crisis, it is apparent that there was a substantial reduction in financial institutions lending to the sectors of the economy that increase value added from production of new goods and services, which increases gross domestic product and real incomes within the economy. Lending to both non-financial corporations and unincorporated business has fallen significantly following the 2007 financial crisis. Financial institutions lending to non-financial corporations has fallen 21% since 2008 (from £515 billion to £405 billion), whilst lending to unincorporated businesses has fallen by 41% since 2008 (from £48 billion to £28 billion) (please see figure 6). This could be an important contributory factor to weak labour productivity growth following the 2007 / 2008 financial crisis, because investment in physical capital stock per worker is an important factor in determining the growth of labour productivity (Barnett, Batten, Chu, Franklin, & Sebastiá-Barriel, 2014, p. 122).

Figure 5: Allocation of lending by financial institutions to sectors of the economy in June 2018[6]
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Figure 6: Financial institutions lending to private non-financial corporations and unincorporated businesses following the 2007 - 2008 financial crisis[7]

There have also been criticisms of some banks' management of loans to small and medium sized enterprises. Nicky Morgan who chairs the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee recently stated in response to Promontory Financial Group’s report (Promontory Financial Group, 2018) on the management of small and medium sized business customers by Royal Bank of Scotland’s, Global Restructuring Group division:

“The findings in the report are disgraceful. The overarching priority at all levels of GRG was not the health and strength of customers, but the generation of income for RBS, through made-up fees, high interest rates, and the acquisition of equity and property”.

The Quantity Theory of Credit proposes that increasing the allocation of credit money for nonGDP transactions (transactions that do not increase GDP (gross domestic product)) will have no impact on economic growth, and will instead promote asset price inflation (Lyonnet & Werner, 2012, p. 95; Werner R. A., 2005). Credit growth for non-GDP transactions must be increasing, if total credit growth exceeds GDP growth (Werner R. A., 2013, p. 366). When lending for non-GDP transactions grows faster than the growth in GDP transactions it can produce asset price bubbles that create the potential for a future financial crisis. Non-GDP transactions are associated with the purchase of existing financial (for example, bonds, shares, and derivatives) and property assets that are sold in secondary markets. Secondary markets transact products previously sold within markets, such as previously issued financial assets (for example, company shares, bonds, and derivatives), and the transfer of ownership of property that has previously been purchased. Whilst primary markets trade newly created financial assets (for example, initial placing of shares by companies, rights issues of shares, and newly issued bonds) and the sale of new properties. The majority of financial and property assets are being resold, and so are traded within secondary markets.

Lending in the United Kingdom is primarily directed towards the purchase of existing property and financial assets (please see figure 7), which encouraged rapid growth in property and share prices, because increased purchasing power was directed towards the purchase of already existing assets that are relatively fixed in supply. During the period 1999 to 2007 the average United Kingdom house price increased by 140% from £93,000 in 1999 to £223,000 in 2007 (please see Figure 9). Figure 10 indicates

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that the growth in lending by financial institutions for purchasing property is an important determinant of house price growth, with a Pearson correlation coefficient between these two variables being 0.75[8]. Gross domestic product only includes transactions in newly created assets, and so an increase in money supply directed towards purchasing assets within secondary markets will cause a reduction in the money supply’s velocity of circulation (Werner R. , 2012; Lyonnet & Werner, 2012, p. 95).

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Figure 7: Net lending by all financial institutions by lending category, and relative to GDP (£billion)[9]
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Figure 8: Percentage change in house prices in relation to percentage change in lending to purchase dwellings.

Increased borrowing by speculators to purchase property and financial assets is encouraged by increased collateral arising from the initial speculative gains resulting from rising asset prices. A further factor increasing demand for assets whose value is rising, is speculators expectations that there will be future speculative gains arising from further increases in asset prices. Richard Werner (2005, p. 228; 2013, p. 362) refers to this as Say’s Law of Credit, because an increased supply of credit creates greater demand for credit to purchase property and financial assets, as a consequence of increased lending causing speculators to believe that there will be future increases in property and financial asset prices.

Banking crises tend to follow a period of rapid increases in asset prices (Reinhart & Rogoff, 2009). A substantial allocation of credit money creation for purchasing property and financial assets within secondary markets caused significant asset price inflation, which provided the context for the 2007

Figure 9: Average United Kingdom house price 1970 to 2017[10]
Figure 10: Impact of change in lending to purchase dwellings by financial institutions on house price inflation
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financial crisis (Werner R. A., 2013, p. 366). At some point the perception that assets may be over-valued influences investors’ perceptions of likely future price movements, and asset prices will fall when credit creation is no longer forthcoming for further asset purchases. This context produces a ‘Minsky Moment’ (Minsky, 1992). Falling asset prices cause speculators to lose money, and their loans will become nonperforming because investors are unable to fulfil their contracted repayments. Banks have a relatively small capital cushion of around 10% of their asset base. Therefore, when the diminution in the value of a bank’s assets exceeds 10% it will cause the bank to become insolvent. Adair Turner (2017, p. 6) states:

“The vast majority of bank lending in advanced economies does not support new business investment but instead funds either increased consumption, or the purchase of already existing assets, in particular real estate. Real estate is relatively fixed in supply, and consequently the transfer of funds to this sector leads to asset price increases that induce yet more credit demand and more credit supply, which is at the core of financial instability in modern economies”.

The 2007 financial crisis was a consequence of commercial banks’ lending excessively for non-GDP transactions that encouraged speculators to purchase existing properties and financial assets with the intention of profiting from increasing asset values. Flows of new bank credit money promoted an increase in the prices of financial assets and property relative to the prices of goods and services in the real economy. Misalignment of prices in the financialised and real economies produced increasing debt servicing costs within the real economy, which placed increasing burdens on the real economy to service loans acquired to conduct non-GDP transactions. In the immediate aftermath of the 2007 financial crisis there was a need to resolve structural imbalances within the economy, which arose from rapidly increasing debt servicing costs that were a consequence of prices within the non-GDP sector of the economy rising much faster than the real-economic output of the economy could sustain.

Richard Werner suggests The Bank of England should have introduced regulations that would cause commercial banks to slowly reduce their lending and credit money creation to facilitate non-GDP transactions relating to property and financial asset purchases, in order to facilitate the rebalancing of financial flows between sectors of the economy. Richard Werner suggests that The Bank of England should introduce regulations in the form of credit guidance (also referred to as window guidance[11] (Werner R. A., 2005, pp. 268 - 270; Werner R. A., 2013, p. 368; Ryan-Collins, Greenham, Werner, & Jackson, 2011, p. 111)), in order to define the proportion of lending that should be allocated by commercial banks to various sectors of the economy. The current aim of credit guidance should be to promote increased lending to the real economy to promote an increase in GDP transactions, whilst reducing lending to speculative sectors of the economy. Commercial banks would incur financial penalties, if they did not adhere to changing the direction of lending to improve macroeconomic stability. The Bank of England has not introduced credit guidance for commercial banks, and imbalances within the economy have consequently increased. Lending for the purchase of property continued to increase relative to lending to private non-financial companies for investment that would increase GDP, post 2007 (please see figure 11). Secondly, lending by financial institutions to other financial institutions continued to rise relative to loans to private non-financial companies following the 2007 financial crisis (please see figure 11).

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Increased lending for property purchase caused a reduction in the affordability of property in England, which is reflected by the median English house price increasing from 3.5 times median annual earnings in 1997 to 7.7 times median annual earnings in 2016 (please see figure 12). The Bank of England could introduce a regulation that reintroduced the custom and practice pursued by financial institutions during the 1960’s and 1970’s that limited the amount that could be borrowed for property purchase to a maximum of three times the borrower’s annual income[13]. However, a decision to re-establish the three times earnings limit on borrowing for property purchase could cause a very substantial reduction in the average English house price, with any reduction in lending for property purchase likely to have a significant negative impact on the wealth of households that are significantly exposed to house price fluctuations. There is the prospect of a Minsky Moment (Minsky, 1992) occurring within the housing market that could severely constrain consumer expenditure, as a consequence of the wealth effect adversely impacting home owning consumers.

Richard Werner suggests that there is a structural aspect to the United Kingdom banking system’s focus on lending for speculative investment. Therefore, an important factor in preventing a future financial crisis would be to change the structure of the United Kingdom banking sector. Richard Werner suggests that the United Kingdom banking system is oligopolistic in nature (a few banks dominate the market), and operate at a national level. Senior management in United Kingdom banks are focussed on pursuing large investment projects, and there is a reduced emphasis on meeting the requirements of small to medium sized enterprises. Whereas, Richard Werner suggests Germany’s more regionally situated banking system facilitates greater familiarity of a bank’s management with the distinctive requirements of small and

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Figure 11: Lending to individuals and financial corporations relative to non-financial corporations[12]
Figure 12: Ratio of median English house price to median annual earnings in England[14]
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medium sized enterprises operating within their region, which is particularly important because small and medium sized enterprises generate the majority of jobs within an economy (Werner R. A., 2013, p. 382), and Mittelstand[15] are an important factor in post-war German economic development. Local and regional banks can reduce their exposure to credit default risk on business loans, due to their closer relationships with the business people borrowing money. This proposition aligns with Michael Porter’s theory relating to clusters that suggests service businesses, which includes banks, are important in giving a particular geographic area a competitive advantage in a particular industry, because the service sector in that area becomes focussed on meeting the unique requirements of important business sectors in the bank’s locality (Porter, 2000)[16]

The United Kingdom’s development of a large oligopolistic national banking structure may have contributed to the development of London as an important international banking centre. This would suggest the importance of developing requisite variety within the United Kingdom banking sector. However, requisite variety (Ashby, 1969) is undermined by institutional isomorphism (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) that cause banks that do not have the same approach to the dominant banks within their national market, to pursue strategies with the intention of becoming increasingly aligned with the dominant banking model adopted by the leading banking groups within the United Kingdom. Therefore, the Clydesdale Yorkshire Banking Group that has a regional focus and diversified lending portfolio (which included significant business banking activity), chose to merge with Virgin Money that is more heavily oriented towards consumer finance and property lending, to develop a greater national presence, and become a challenger bank to the leading United Kingdom banking groups.

The failure of the government and central bank to resolve the significant imbalances in commercial bank lending between GDP transactions and non-GDP transactions will provide the basis for the next financial crisis. Lending for investment that increases GDP transactions is economically sustainable, because the value-added generated from producing new goods and services that increase GDP is used to finance repayment of interest and capital on borrowings, with the remainder of retained earnings being distributed between stakeholders to increase factor incomes within the economy. Whereas allocation of lending for non-GDP transactions creates asset bubbles. The next financial crisis is likely to be deeper than the 2007 financial crisis due to increased levels of debt, and increased imbalance in commercial banks’ lending between GDP and non-GDP sectors of the economy.

4. Central Bank Policies to Manage the 2007 Financial Crisis

4.1 Should the Bank of England reduce interest rates in response to this type of financial crisis?

The first policy decision by The Bank of England was to reduce interest rates, to reduce debt servicing costs and promote increased economic activity. The Monetary Policy Committee of The Bank of England reduced interest rates in steps from 5.5% in December 2007 to 0.5% in March 2009 (Lyonnet & Werner, 2012, p. 97). The Bank of England influences market interest rate by lending and borrowing central bank reserves. The primary objective of The Bank of England’s open market operations (OMO) is to supply a sufficient quantity of central bank reserves to financial markets, in order to ensure that the market rate of interest remains close to the central bank policy rate (Bank of England base rate) (Ryan-Collins, Greenham, Werner, & Jackson, 2011, pp. 48 - 50).

The transmission mechanisms of monetary policy identify the various channels by which interest rate changes influence economic activity (please see figure 13), and are discussed in a paper produced by the Bank of England (1999). A change in the official Bank of England interest rate influences market interest

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rates charged by other financial institutions, by altering the rate of interest that banks receive on the balances they hold at the Bank of England. A change in the official market interest rate causes savings rates to change, together with interest rates on various types of borrowing. The impact of changing interest rates impacts real economic activity through various channels. Lower market interest rates provide an economic incentive to reduce saving, which promotes increased consumer expenditure. Lower market interest rates reduce existing debt servicing costs, which increases personal disposable incomes and encourages greater consumption. Lower interest rates also encourage increased borrowing by both firms and households, because the future cost of repaying debt is reduced. New investment is promoted as lower interest rates enable firms to invest in projects that generate a lower return on investment than previously, but still achieve a percentage rate of return that exceeds their cost of capital. Rising demand within the economy causes businesses to operate at higher levels of capacity utilisation, and rising capacity utilisation within firms combined with lower interest rates encourage firms to increase investment.

Lower interest rates promote increased asset prices, because reduced market interest rates encourage investors to transfer their money to other asset classes that generate higher rates of return. If market interest rates are reduced from 5% to 1%, then property investors are likely to be willing to purchase properties that produce a net return on investment in excess of the 1% money market interest rate. A reduction in the market interest rate encourages investors to bid up the price of assets, until the rate of return earned on an asset is slightly above the money market (risk free) interest rate. Although, the volatility of returns associated with a particular asset class, and risk to capital, will be further factors influencing the premium that investors seek relative to the risk-free rate of return earned on money. Higher asset prices produce a wealth effect, because owners of assets perceive themselves to be wealthier as a consequence of rising asset prices. Greater perceived wealth is likely to encourage greater consumption by asset rich consumers.

Lower interest rates also influence expectations of households and firms about the future state of the economy, which will influence both consumption and investment behaviour within the economy. However, there is some uncertainty regarding how consumers and producers perceive the impact of interest rate changes on the economy. Lower interest rates may cause economic agents to perceive that economic activity will increase for the reasons discussed above, which will encourage increased consumption, production, and investment. However, economic agents may perceive that a reduction in interest rates is being introduced because the monetary authorities are concerned about the declining prospects of the economy, and the resulting pessimism could cause a reduction in consumption, production, and investment.

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Lower domestic interest rates reduce the rate of return earned on United Kingdom investments relative to rates of return earned in other currency areas, which encourages investors to move their capital to currency areas offering a better rate of return on capital. Expectations of currency depreciation will also encourage investors to move their money out of the currency, in the expectation that they can increase their capital by moving their money back into the currency following depreciation. Investors capital transfers to other currency areas are expected to cause a depreciation in the value of a currency relative to other currencies. Currency depreciation will benefit exporters whose product price can be reduced in export markets, increasing sales volume as a consequence of making their product proposition more price competitive within industries where price competitiveness is an important basis for international competitiveness. Alternatively, exporters can maintain their prices in export markets to increase profit margins. Imported products become more expensive when a currency depreciates, which encourages consumers to substitute domestically produced products that are more price competitive following currency depreciation for imports. Therefore, currency depreciation promotes increased demand for products produced within the currency area whose interest rates have fallen relatively faster than other currency areas.

An expansionary monetary policy promotes increased economic activity in the short-term. However, debt brings forward future consumption into the current period, which acts to constrain the growth of consumer expenditure in future years. This is a consequence of an expansionary monetary policy making the acquisition of loans more attractive, by reducing the future purchasing power that must be foregone as a consequence of acquiring a particular loan amount. However, in the medium to long-term the increased indebtedness resulting from an expansionary monetary policy will constrain future economic activity. Poorer households have the highest level of borrowing, and the largest marginal propensity to consume. Therefore, there will be a significant constraint on the growth of future consumer expenditure and economic activity as a consequence of high debt levels constraining future consumption by groups with the highest marginal propensity to consume (Mian & Sufi, 2011). Steve Keen stated that the only way for economies “to avoid a substantial decline in aggregate demand (and therefore a recession) from private sector behaviour alone is for private debt to continue rising faster than gross domestic product. But in a world in which debt necessitates interest payments, at some point aggregate debt servicing costs will exceed the income available to meet them” (Keen, 2017, p. 102).

Figure 13: Transmission Mechanisms of Monetary Policy
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Lee and Werner (2018; Lyonnet & Werner, 2012, p. 94) suggest that lower interest rates are not a lead indicator of increased future economic activity, due to the operation of the Monetary Transmission Mechanisms discussed in the Bank of England (1999) paper. Instead, Lee and Werner (2018; Lyonnet & Werner, 2012, p. 94) suggest interest rate changes follow changes in the economic growth rate, and interest rates do not promote changes in the economic growth rate. Consequently, an improvement in the economic growth rate causes interest rates to rise, whereas a contraction in the economic growth rate causes interest rates to fall (Lee & Werner, 2018, p. 28; Werner R. A., 2018; Lyonnet & Werner, 2012, p 94).

Lee and Werner suggest that improving the United Kingdom’s economic growth rate requires The Bank of England to increase interest rates (Lee & Werner, 2018, p. 32; Werner R. A., 2018). Lee and Werner’s rationale for this counter-intuitive proposition is that The Bank of England currently relies on using the price mechanism (interest rates) to achieve market clearing within financial markets. However, the price mechanism only achieves balance between the quantities demanded and supplied within a market when a number of stringent conditions are satisfied. The conditions required for the price mechanism to efficiently clear markets include perfect and symmetrical information being held by both buyers and suppliers, perfect competition occurs within the market, there are no transaction costs, there are no time constraints, and price adjustments occur instantaneously within markets. The failure of financial markets to satisfy these stringent criteria means that the price mechanism does not provide an efficient means for matching supply and demand within financial market (Lee & Werner, 2018, p. 27).

Lee and Werner (2018, p. 27) suggest quantities become the primary driver of resource allocation when the price mechanism does not provide an efficient way of allocating resources within financial markets, due to the failure of financial markets to achieve at least some of the above criteria. When quantities become the main driver of resource allocation, market power and the ability to extract economic rents are available to the side of the market (buyers or suppliers) that is most limited (referred to as ‘the short side of the market’) Within financial markets the primary constraint is on lending, with a large number of borrowers competing for a limited availability of funds. Therefore, the supply of lending is the ‘short side’ within financial markets, and lenders engage in rationing the available funds based on their decision criteria.

Richard Werner suggests lower interest rates cause speculative investors to crowd-out businesses that seek to borrow funds for investment in productive assets to increase gross domestic product. Higher interest rates remove speculative investors from the market, providing a greater availability of funds for investment in productive assets that increase gross domestic product. Increased interest rates would lead to an increasing proportion of new credit money being allocated to sectors of the economy that use the funds to create new goods and services to increase gross domestic product and economic growth. Consequently, Richard Werner suggests that increasing interest rates will counter-intuitively produce an improved economic growth rate. Allocation of new credit money to productive investment creates a more sustainable financial system, because the value-added created by productive investment is used to repay loan capital and interest on accumulated debt, and generates profits to be shared between stakeholders of the value-added creating organisation.

4.2 What type of quantitative easing is appropriate?

Central banks must manage two important problems that financial institutions may encounter during a financial crisis. Firstly, banks’ must be able to maintain liquidity, which refers to banks being able to generate the cash required to meet their depositors demands to withdraw money from their bank accounts. Maintaining liquidity can be problematic for banks during a financial crisis, because banks engage in maturity transformation. Maturity transformation refers to banks generally acquiring money

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from customers for a short period of time, whilst providing loans to customers for much longer periods (for example, a bank may provide a 25-year mortgage). The difference in interest rates associated with borrowing for short periods of time whilst lending for a much longer period provides an interest rate spread that enables banks to make a profit. However, if a sufficiently large proportion of depositors seek to withdraw their money from the financial institution within a short period of time, the bank will have insufficient money balances and liquid assets to satisfy customers demands to withdraw their money[17].

Commercial banks must also remain solvent, which refers to commercial banks having sufficient assets to meet all their liabilities. Bank solvency is determined by whether a bank has sufficient capital to cover losses that reduce the asset side of a bank’s balance sheet. Banks have a relatively limited amount of capital relative to the credit money that they have created. When a bank’s bad debts exceed the bank’s 10% capital cushion it will cause a bank to become insolvent, because their assets are no longer sufficient to cover their liabilities (Werner R. , 2012, p. 21).

Assets Liabilities

Customer deposits

Debt

Loans to customers

Reserves at the central bank

Cash

Physical assets (for example, buildings and equipment)

Financial assets (for example, government and corporate bonds)

Bank capital - comprises of initial shareholder equity investment at the Initial Public Offering (IPO)

additional equity released over time, and after the IPO

retained profits

subordinated debt

Please note: Bank capital is reduced by provisions that are made to cover depreciation of assets, and provisions for bad and doubtful debts of customers

To protect the solvency of commercial banks, The Bank of England conducted a programme of quantitative easing, which involved purchasing assets primarily from non-bank financial intermediaries such as pension funds and insurance companies. Quantitative easing occurs when the central bank creates new money electronically, by issuing central bank reserves to purchase financial assets such as government and corporate bonds from financial institutions. Quantitative easing encourages non-bank financial institutions such as pension funds and insurance companies to diversify out of government backed securities into other types of financial assets and property, which helped to sustain property and financial asset prices, at least in the short-to medium term.

Maintaining asset prices prevented a reduction in house prices that would cause a contraction in consumer expenditure, as a consequence of the ‘wealth effect’. Maintaining asset prices avoids asset rich consumers perceiving themselves to be poorer as a consequence of falling asset prices, which would cause them to reduce their personal consumption. The Bank of England’s approach to quantitative easing avoided the significant fall in consumer expenditure that occurred in the United States, which is explained by Mian and Sufi’s levered - losses framework (Mian & Sufi, 2015, pp. 45-59).

Figure 14: Important categories of assets and liabilities within a bank's balance sheet.
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The Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme is similar to the traditional open market operations policy conducted by the Bank of England to influence the flow of money and liquidity in the financial system. The Bank of England primarily purchased government treasury stock and some corporate bonds from non-bank financial intermediaries, such as pension funds and insurance companies, but also purchased some assets from commercial banks. The quantitative easing programme was largely spent purchasing government bonds (£435 billion), although a further £10 billion was spent purchasing corporate bonds. The £445 billion of quantitative easing (please see figure 14) is equivalent to approximately £6,780 per United Kingdom resident. Money supply increases from MS to MS2 as a consequence of quantitative easing, which reduces the interest rate from ir to ir (please see figure 15).

The quantitative easing process involves the pension fund’s bank receiving additional central bank reserves from the Bank of England’s Asset Purchase Facility, which is used by the Bank of England to purchase gilt edged securities from financial markets. Consequently, pension funds holdings of treasury stock are reduced, and there is a corresponding increase in pension fund’s holdings of commercial bank deposits. The T-accounts for the pension fund and commercial bank resulting from the Bank of England’s Asset Purchase Facility purchasing a £100 of treasury stock are shown below:

QE impact on the pension fund balance sheet Assets

Figure 15: Impact of quantitative easing on interest rates[18] Figure 16: Quantitative easing in £ billions since 2009[19]
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Less: Sale of Treasury Stock leads to loss of asset on the balance sheet (£100)

Add: Bank deposit from sale (£100)

Unchanged

QE impact on the commercial bank balance sheet

Central Bank Reserves £100

Deposit Pension fund £100

Quantitative easing may have a limited impact on commercial banks' liquidity, if non-bank financial institutions receiving the money rapidly use the money received from the sale of government treasury stock to acquire other types of financial assets and property. If the non-bank financial institutions maintain bank deposits with commercial banks the programme of quantitative easing will have a liquidity effect, because commercial banks will have significantly increased holdings of central bank reserves, which provides banks with the additional liquidity to increase their lending to the real economy and create new credit money for GDP transactions. Commercial banks high level of risk aversion in a recession caused by a high level of non-performing assets, means that this channel has been relatively weak in promoting greater economic activity. Secondly, the significant growth in financial asset and property prices meant new bank lending was directed towards the purchase of financial assets and property, because of the price momentum in these assets classes resulting from previous bank lending. Continued strong growth in financial and property asset prices provided speculators with the collateral for loans, and caused banks to perceive a low credit default risk associated with lending for speculative purposes.

Quantitative easing by The Bank of England increased the price of treasury stock as a consequence of the increased demand for government bonds created by the Bank of England’s Asset Purchase Facility. There is a portfolio rebalancing effect as The Bank of England’s asset purchase programme increases the price of treasury stock due to the reduced availability of treasury stock, which reduces the financial return (yield) received by investors in treasury stock. The financial return on treasury stock is fixed when treasury stock is first issued, as a percentage of the £100 value of each unit of treasury stock until the maturity date of the treasury stock. For example, Treasury Stock 1.5% 2020 generates a return of £1.50 per £100 unit of treasury stock between the date when the treasury stock is issued and the maturity date of the treasury stock. Reduced yields on treasury stock encourage financial institutions to acquire other types of financial asset (for example, corporate bonds, equities, and derivatives) and property that generate a higher yield. Increased demand by non-bank financial intermediaries for property, corporate bonds and equity helps to maintain asset prices, which will avoid bank loans that were used to acquire these types of asset from becoming non-performing in the banking sector.

The quantitative easing policy succeeded in maintaining both property and financial asset prices, and promoted further significant increases in asset prices after the 2007 financial crisis. £199 billion of quantitative easing conducted during 2009 and 2010 supported house prices, with the average house price increasing by 11.1% in 2010, despite there only being an increase of 0.7% in lending by financial institutions to individuals for property purchase. The average house price increased from £223,000 in 2007 to £283,000 in 2016 (please see figure 9), an increase of 27%. Whilst the Financial Times Stock

Liabilities
Assets
Assets Liabilities
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Exchange (FTSE) 100 index has doubled since 1 February 2009, which provides a measure of share price increases following the quantitative easing programme.

The Bank of England’s policy of maintaining asset prices is intended to maintain the solvency of banks (bank assets are at least equal to, and ideally exceed, bank liabilities). Bank solvency enables the interbank market to continue to operate, because lenders within the market are no longer concerned about the risk of counter-party credit default, which maintains liquidity within the banking system. However, attempts by the monetary authorities to maintain asset prices above the historic mean, which aims to maintain the stability of the banking sector in the short-to-medium term, is likely to increase the risk of significant future asset price reductions that would sow the seeds of a future financial crisis that is more serious than the previous financial crisis.

Werner and Lyonnet (2012, p. 94) suggest the Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme that was announced in 2009 had no apparent effect on United Kingdom economic growth. Lyonnet and Werner suggest that to promote economic growth, The Bank of England should have directly targeted the growth of bank credit for business investment that facilitates growth in GDP transactions (2012, p. 94). The Bank of England could have provided loan guarantees for lending to non-financial corporations and unincorporated businesses, to indemnify risk averse banks for lending to sectors of the economy that raise GDP (Lyonnet & Werner, 2012, p. 96). The approach to quantitative easing adopted by the Bank of England was not the form of quantitative easing proposed by Richard Werner, because it did not promote increased credit creation by commercial banks as a consequence of the central bank agreeing to purchase all commercial banks impaired and non-performing loans at face value (Lyonnet & Werner, 2012, p. 96) [20]. The Bank of England was unwilling to engage in cleaning commercial banks’ balance sheet of nonperforming loans, because of the potential moral hazard this created. Moral hazard suggests that if commercial banks are protected from the consequences of poor lending practices there is a risk that commercial banks will fail to learn from previous mistakes, which will increase future systemic risk in the financial system.

Despite £199 billion of quantitative easing conducted by the Bank of England during 2009 to 2010, total lending by financial institutions fell during the period 2010 to 2015 (please see figure 3), and the reduction in lending to non-financial corporations and unincorporated businesses was particularly significant (please see figure 6). Reduction in lending was so significant in 2011 that the money supply declined, due to a fall in bank deposits (please see figure 4). Commercial banks continued to emphasise lending for non-GDP transactions as a consequence of continued increases in financial asset and property prices, which suggests that commercial banks have failed to learn the lessons provided by the 2007 financial crisis.

Lyonnet and Werner (2012, p. 96) suggest the Bank of England could increase economic activity by lending directly to companies and the government. Lyonnet and Werner (2012, p. 96) also suggest that government should no longer issue bonds to fund government deficits. Instead, government should borrow directly from commercial banks, or The Bank of England, through standard loan contracts. Borrowing from commercial banks, or the central bank, creates new money that will not crowd-out existing private sector lending. Whereas, issuing bonds on the Stock Exchange will prevent the money government borrows from being loaned to the private sector, because the bond market primarily comprises of non-bank financial institutions that do not have the ability to create new credit money

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Footnotes

[1] The chart and related data are available within the M4 worksheet, which is contained in the charts and data workbook

[2] Whilst the policy rate defines the rate at which banks and other financial institutions can access cash and Bank of England reserves, it does not constrain the rate at which financial institutions can lend to

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[3] The chart and related data are available within the ‘money supply’ worksheet, which is contained in the charts and data workbook

[4] The chart and related data are available within the ‘all financial institutions’ worksheet, which is contained in the charts and data workbook.

[5] The chart and related data are available within the ‘all financial institutions’ worksheet, which is contained in the charts and data workbook.

[6] The chart and related data are available within the summary worksheet, which is contained in the charts and data workbook.

[7] The chart and related data are available within the ‘all financial institutions’ worksheet, which is contained in the charts and data workbook.

[8] Please see cell AA51 in the house prices worksheet, which is contained in the charts and data workbook.

[9] The chart and related data are available within the ‘all financial institutions’ worksheet, which is contained in the charts and data workbook.

[10] The chart and related data are available within the ‘house prices’ worksheet, which is contained in the charts and data workbook.

[11] Japanese monetary authorities operated a system of quantitative and qualitative credit controls during the post-war period, which Richard Werner refers to as 'window guidance' (Werner R. A., 2005, p. 269). Effective control and direction of credit by the monetary authorities supported rapid Japanese economic development during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Credit controls should be developed with the aim of achieving specific economic growth targets. However, Japanese 'window guidance' from the mid1980s allowed rapid credit expansion, and did not restrict lending for speculative purposes, which has since caused serious economic problems in Japan. Therefore, it is not sufficient simply to have credit controls in place. Credit controls implemented by the monetary authorities must aim to avoid excessive credit creation by the banking system, and limit the amount of credit being directed towards the purchase of speculative assets.

[12] The chart and related data are available within the ‘all financial institutions’ worksheet, which is contained in the charts and data workbook.

[13] The Bank of England have developed macroprudential policies since the 2007 financial crisis to avoid another financial crisis. The Financial Policy Committee has been created, which is able to impose loan to value, and loan to income, ratios on mortgages issued in the United Kingdom. In 2014, the Financial Policy Committee defined that no more than 15 per cent of new bank lending for residential home purchases should have a loan value exceeding 4.5 times the borrower’s annual income.

[14] The chart and related data are available within the ‘house prices’ worksheet, which is contained in the charts and data workbook.

other organisations and individuals.
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[15] Mittelstand refers to a German small or medium sized enterprise that is family owned, and focusses on a particular niche sector of a product market.

[16] Therefore, banks within California have developed a specialism in accepting Californian wineries fermented wine as collateral for business loans.

[17] A shortage of liquidity created a problem for Northern Rock Bank, when a sufficiently large group of customers wanted to withdraw their money from the bank at the start of the 2007 financial crisis.

[18] I have used the liquidity preference theory of interest rate determination, which is also referred to as portfolio balance theory, to show that an increase in money supply will cause a reduction in the rate of interest. However, please note that a vertical money supply curve suggests that money supply is exogenously determined (government determines the amount of money in the economy), whereas this paper argues that money supply is determined by the actions of financial institutions operating within the market, which means that money supply is endogenously determined.

[19] The chart and related data are available within the ‘quantitative easing’ worksheet, which is contained in the charts and data workbook.

[20] The Bank of England did conduct this activity to a limited extent, through the Bank of England’s ‘Special Liquidity Scheme’, which was accessible to banks and building societies between April 2008 and 30 January 2009 (Lyonnet & Werner, 2012, p. 97), which allowed banks and building societies to swap some of their illiquid assets for liquid United Kingdom treasury bills.

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