IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bap/journl/150403.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Costs and Welfare Effects of ECB's Financial Repression Policy: Consequences for German Savers

Author

Listed:
  • Gerhard R?sl

    (Faculty of Business Administration, University of Applied Sciences ¨C OTH Regensburg Seybothstrasse 2, 93053 Regensburg, GERMANY)

  • Karl-Heinz T?dter

    (Bundesbankdirector (ret.), Deutsche Bundesbank Wilhelm-Epstein-Strasse 14, 60431 Frankfurt am Main, GERMANY)

Abstract

The losses in interest income of German savers as a result of ECB¡¯s monetary policy of extremely low interest rates are estimated at around €65bn pa. These losses exceed the financial costs of capital yields taxes and the inflation tax on consumer prices taken together. However, the calculations do not take into account that (especially public) debtors benefit from low interest rates. We develop new measurement concepts and apply an overlapping generation model in order to calculate stepwise the net welfare costs (excess burden) for the German economy. Capital yields taxes have an excess burden of €10bn per year. The excess burden from 1.5% inflation totals at €33bn pa. In comparison, the monetary policy of low interest rates that is conducted by the ECB since 2010 created an excess burden of €37bn or 1.4% of GDP pa. Hence, the cumulated net welfare losses resulting from the ECB policy of ultra-easy money already exceed the primary effects of the financial crisis.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerhard R?sl & Karl-Heinz T?dter, 2015. "The Costs and Welfare Effects of ECB's Financial Repression Policy: Consequences for German Savers," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 5, pages 42-59, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bap:journl:150403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bapress.ca/ref/ref-article/1923-7529-2015-04-42-18.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reinhart, C. M., 2012. "The return of financial repression," Financial Stability Review, Banque de France, issue 16, pages 37-48, April.
    2. Barro, Robert J & Gordon, David B, 1983. "A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural Rate Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 589-610, August.
    3. Robert E. Lucas, 2001. "Inflation and Welfare," International Economic Association Series, in: Axel Leijonhufvud (ed.), Monetary Theory as a Basis for Monetary Policy, chapter 4, pages 96-142, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Havranek, Tomas & Horvath, Roman & Irsova, Zuzana & Rusnak, Marek, 2015. "Cross-country heterogeneity in intertemporal substitution," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 100-118.
    5. Paul A. Samuelson, 1958. "An Exact Consumption-Loan Model of Interest with or without the Social Contrivance of Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(6), pages 467-467.
    6. Fry, Maxwell J., 1981. "Government revenue from monopoly supply of currency and deposits," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 261-270.
    7. Martin S. Feldstein, 1999. "Capital Income Taxes and the Benefit of Price Stability," NBER Chapters, in: The Costs and Benefits of Price Stability, pages 9-46, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Carmen M. Reinhart & M. Belen Sbrancia1, 2015. "The liquidation of government debt," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 30(82), pages 291-333.
    9. W. Erwin Diewert, 2002. "Harmonized Indexes of Consumer Prices: Their Conceptual Foundations," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 138(IV), pages 547-637, December.
    10. Andreas Hoffmann & Holger Zemanek, 2012. "Financial repression and debt liquidation in the USA and the euro area," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 47(6), pages 344-351, November.
    11. Michael F. Bryan & Stephen G. Cecchetti & Roisin O'Sullivan, 2002. "Asset Prices in the Measurement of Inflation," NBER Working Papers 8700, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Martin Feldstein, 1999. "Introduction to "Costs and Benefits of Price Stability, The"," NBER Chapters, in: The Costs and Benefits of Price Stability, pages 1-8, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Friedman, Milton, 1971. "Government Revenue from Inflation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(4), pages 846-856, July-Aug..
    14. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Stanley Fischer, 1989. "Lectures on Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262022834, December.
    15. Hiroshi Shibuya, 1992. "Dynamic Equilibrium Price Index: Asset Price and Inflation," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 10(1), pages 95-109, February.
    16. Robert A. Pollak, 1975. "The Intertemporal Cost of Living Index," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 4, number 1, pages 179-198, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Martin Feldstein, 1999. "The Costs and Benefits of Price Stability," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number feld99-1, May.
    18. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gerhard Rösl & Karl-Heinz Tödter, 2015. "Zins- und Wohlfahrtseffekte extremer Niedrigzinspolitik für die Sparer in Deutschland," ROME Working Papers 201501, ROME Network.
    2. Gerhard Rösl & Karl-Heinz Tödter, 2015. "How High Are the Costs of the ECB’s Low-Interest Rate Policy for Germany?," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 68(07), pages 43-50, April.
    3. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777.
    4. Tödter, Karl-Heinz & Ziebarth, Gerhard, 2018. "Zinsen, Effektivpreise und Lebenskosten: Ein Beitrag zur Konstruktion eines intertemporalen Preisindex," IMFS Working Paper Series 123, Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS).
    5. repec:ces:ifodic:v:15:y:2017:i:1:p:19307478 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Gerhard Rösl & Karl-Heinz Tödter, 2017. "The Financial Repression Policy of the European Central Bank: Interest Income and Welfare Losses for German Savers," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 15(01), pages 05-08, April.
    7. Shiratsuka, Shigenori, 2001. "Is There a Desirable Rate of Inflation? A Theoretical and Empirical Survey," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 19(2), pages 49-83, May.
    8. Gerhard Rösl & Karl-Heinz Tödter, 2017. "The Financial Repression Policy of the European Central Bank: Interest Income and Welfare Losses for German Savers," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 15(1), pages 05-08, 04.
    9. Ivan Sutoris, 2020. "The Intertemporal Cost of Living and Dynamic Inflation: The Case of the Czech Republic," Working Papers 2020/9, Czech National Bank.
    10. Bertrand Crettez, 1994. "Cohérence temporelle des politiques économiques dans un modèle avec équation d'anticipation," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 45(4), pages 989-1008.
    11. Olga A. Norkina & Sergey E. Pekarski, 2014. "Optimal Financial Repression," HSE Working papers WP BRP 81/EC/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    12. Josh Ryan-Collins, 2015. "Is Monetary Financing Inflationary? A Case Study of the Canadian Economy, 1935-75," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_848, Levy Economics Institute.
    13. Martin, Fernando M., 2015. "Debt, inflation and central bank independence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 129-150.
    14. McCallum, Bennett T., 1999. "Issues in the design of monetary policy rules," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 23, pages 1483-1530, Elsevier.
    15. Kozo Ueda, 2001. "Costs of Inflation in Japan: Tax and Resource Allocation," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series Research and Statistics D, Bank of Japan.
    16. Blaszkiewicz, Monika & Konieczny, Jerzy & Myslinska, Anna & Radziwil, Artur & Przemyslaw, Wozniak, 2002. "Some benefits of reducing inflation in transition economies," BOFIT Discussion Papers 16/2002, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    17. Elbahnasawy, Nasr G. & Ellis, Michael A., 2022. "Inflation and the Structure of Economic and Political Systems," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 59-74.
    18. Alfaro, Laura & Kanczuk, Fabio, 2010. "Nominal versus indexed debt: A quantitative horse race," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(8), pages 1706-1726, December.
    19. Finocchiaro, Daria & Lombardo, Giovanni & Mendicino, Caterina & Weil, Philippe, 2018. "Optimal inflation with corporate taxation and financial constraints," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 18-31.
    20. John Vickers, 2000. "Monetary union and economic growth," Working Paper Research 10, National Bank of Belgium.
    21. Jean-Bernard Chatelain & Kirsten Ralf, 2020. "How macroeconomists lost control of stabilization policy: towards dark ages," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(6), pages 938-982, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial repression; Interest rate policy; ECB; Savings losses; Welfare; OLG-model; Distortions; Deadweight loss; Retirement consumption;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bap:journl:150403. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Carlson (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.bapress.ca .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.