Social Trends – Page 130 – Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

China’s Thrift, and What to Do About It

What makes China’s citizens so thrifty, and why does that matter for China and the rest of the world? The country’s saving rate, at 46 percent of GDP, is among the world’s highest. Households account for about half of savings, with corporations and the government making up the rest.

Saving is good, right? Up to a point. But too much saving by individuals can be bad for society. That’s because the flip side of high savings is low consumption and low household welfare. High savings can also fuel excessive investment, resulting in a buildup of debt in China. And because people in China save so much, they buy fewer imported goods than they sell abroad. That contributes to global imbalances, according to a recent IMF paper, China’s High Savings: Drivers, Prospects, and Policies. The country’s authorities are aware of the issue and are taking steps to address it.

China’s saving rate started to soar in the late 1970s. A look at some of the causes of the increase points to some potential remedies.

Demographics explain about half the increase in saving, the Chart of the Week shows. China’s average family size dropped dramatically after the introduction of the “one child” policy. That influenced household budgets in two ways. Parents spent less money raising their children. At the same time, because children were traditionally a source of support in old age, having fewer children prompted parents to save more for retirement.

Greater income inequality, resulting from China’s transition to a more market-driven economy, is also a big contributor. A wider gap between rich and poor increases saving because the wealthy spend a smaller proportion of their income on necessities and put more money in the bank.

Economic reform has boosted saving in other ways. More Chinese now live in their own homes, as opposed to housing provided by state-owned enterprises. So they must save for a down payment and for mortgage payments. (Household debt, while still low, has risen rapidly in recent years, linked largely to asset price speculation.) And a decline in government spending on social services during the economic transition in the 1980s and 90s has meant that Chinese must save more for retirement or to pay for health care.

There are several things the government can do to encourage more spending:

Make the income tax more progressive and family friendly;

Spend more on health care, pensions and education;

Spend more on assistance to the poor, which would reduce income inequality.

Of course, China will need more revenue to pay for all of this. One answer would be to increase the dividends paid by state owned enterprises. Another would be to transfer shares of these firms to social security funds. With the right policies, China can encourage spending while avoiding the fate predicted by Confucius: “He who does not economize must agonize.”

Why Are Banks Shuttering Branches?

From The St. Louis Fed On The Economy Blog

On Feb. 6, the Wall Street Journal published a startling statistic: Between June 2016 and June 2017, more than 1,700 U.S. bank branches were closed, the largest 12-month decline on record.¹

Structural Shift

That large drop, while surprising, is part of a trend in net branch closures that began in 2009. It follows a profound structural shift in the number and size of independent U.S. banking headquarters, or charters, over the past three decades.

In 1980, nearly 20,000 commercial banks and thrifts with more than 42,000 branches were operating in the nation. Since then, the number of bank and thrift headquarters has steadily declined.

The reasons for the decline in charters and branches are varied. Regarding charters, the passage of the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act in 1994 played a significant role in their decline. Banks operating in more than one state took advantage of the opportunity to consolidate individual state charters into one entity and convert the remaining banks into branches. Almost all states opted in to a provision in the law permitting interstate branching, which led to a steady increase in branches.

Trend Reversal

Even before the number of charters declined, however, the number of branches grew steadily throughout the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. It peaked in 2009, when the trend reversed, as seen in the figure below.

Since 2009, the number of commercial bank and thrift branches has shrunk nearly 10 percent, or just over 1 percent per year.

The initial wave of closings can be attributed to a wave of mergers and failed bank acquisitions following the financial crisis. There was an immediate opportunity to reduce cost through the shuttering of inefficient office locations. Branch closings were also influenced by earnings pressure from low interest rates and rising regulatory costs.

More recently, changing consumer preferences and improvements in financial technology have further spurred the reduction in branches. Customers increasingly use ATMs, online banking and mobile apps to conduct routine banking business, meaning banks can close less profitable branches without sacrificing market share.

Uneven Changes

The reduction in offices has not been uniform. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., less than one-fifth of banks reported a net decline in offices between 2012 and 2017, and slightly more than one-fifth reported an increase in offices.

Just 15 percent of community banks reported branch office closures between 2012 and 2017. And though closures outnumber them, new branches continue to be opened. It’s also important to note that deposits continue to grow—especially at community banks—even as the number of institutions and branches decline.

The Industry of the Future

It seems inevitable that this long-term trend in branch closings will continue as consumer preferences evolve and financial technology becomes further ingrained in credit and payment services.

Although it is unlikely that the U.S. will end up resembling other countries with relatively few bank charters, it seems certain that consumers and businesses will increasingly access services with technology, no matter the size or location of bank offices. This change creates opportunities as well as operational risks that will need to be managed by banks and regulators alike.

Immigration, Unemployment, Wages and House Prices

From The Conversation.

Australia should cut its immigration intake, according to Tony Abbott in a recent speech at the Sydney Institute. Abbott explicitly cites economic theory in his arguments: “It’s a basic law of economics that increasing the supply of labour depresses wages; and that increasing demand for housing boosts price.”

But this economic analysis is too basic. Yes, supply matters. But so does demand.

While migration has increased labour supply, it has done so primarily in sectors where firms were starved of labour, and at a time of broad economic growth.

Immigration has put pressure on infrastructure, but our problems are more a function of governments failing to upgrade and expand infrastructure, even as migrants pay taxes.

And while migrants do live in houses, the federal government’s fondness for stoking demand and the inactivity of state governments in increasing supply are the real issues affecting affordability.

The economy isn’t a fixed pie

Let’s take Abbott’s claims about immigration one by one, starting with wages.

It’s true that if you increase labour supply that, holding other factors that affect wages constant, wages will decline. However, those other factors are rarely constant.

Notably, if the demand for labour is increasing by more than supply (including new migrants), then wages will rise.

This is a big part of the story when it comes to the relationship between wages and migration in Australia. Large migrant numbers have been an almost constant feature of Australia’s economy since the end of the second world war, if not earlier.

But these migrants typically arrived in the midst of economic growth and rising demand for labour. This is particularly true in recent decades, when we have had one of the longest periods of unbroken growth in the history of the developed world.

In our study of the Australian labour market, we found no relationship between immigration rates and poor outcomes for incumbent Australian workers in terms of wages or jobs.

Australia uses a point system for migration that targets skilled migrants in areas of high labour demand. Business is suffering in these areas. Migrants into these sectors don’t take jobs from anybody else because they are meeting previously unmet demand.

These migrants receive a higher wage than they would in their place of origin, and they allow their new employers to reduce costs. This ultimately leads to lower prices for consumers. Just about everybody benefits.

There’s an idea called the “lump of labour fallacy”, which holds that there is a certain amount of work to be done in an economy, and if you bring in more labour it will increase competition for those jobs.

But migrants also bring capital, investing in houses, appliances, businesses, education and many other things. This increases economic activity and the number of jobs available.

Furthermore, innovation has been shown to be strongly linked to immigration. In the United States, for instance, immigrants apply for patents at twice the rate of non-immigrants. And a large number of studies show that immigrants are over-represented in patents, patent impact and innovative activity in a wide range of countries.

We don’t entirely know why this is. It could be that innovative countries attract migrants, or it could be than migrants help innovation. It’s likely that the effect goes both ways and is a strong argument against curtailing immigration.

Abbott’s comments are more reasonable in the case of housing affordability because here all other things really are held constant. Specifically, studies show that housing demand is overheated in part by federal government policies (negative gearing and capital gains tax exemptions, for instance) and state governments not doing enough to increase supply.

Governments have responded to high housing prices by further stoking demand, suggesting that people dip into their superannuation, for instance.

In the wake of Abbott’s speech there has been speculation that our current immigration numbers could exacerbate the pressures of automation, artificial intelligence and other labour-saving innovations.

But our understanding of these forces is nascent at best. In previous instances of major technological disruption, like the industrial revolution, the long-run effects on employment were negligible. When ATMs debuted, for example, many bank tellers lost their jobs. But the cost of branches also declined, new branches opened and total employment did not decline.

In his speech, Abbott said that the government needs policies that are principled, practical and popular. What would be popular is if governments across the country could fix our myriad policy problems. Abbott identified some of the big ones – wages, infrastructure and housing affordability.

What would be practical is to identify the causes of these problems and address these directly. Immigration is certainly not a major cause. It would be principled to undertake evidence-based analysis regarding what the causes are and how to address them.

A lot of that has already been done, notably by the Grattan Institute. What remains is for governments to do the politically difficult work of facing the facts.

Authors: Robert Breunig, Professor of Economics, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University; Mark Fabian, Postgraduate student, Australian National University

Regional Insolvencies Higher than Capital Cities

The latest data from The Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA), regional personal insolvency statistics for the December quarter 2017, shows that on a relative basis more are in distress in the regions than in the major centres.

That said, there were 7,687 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in the December quarter 2017 in Australia. Of these, 4,785 debtors or 62.2% were located in greater capital cities.

New South Wales – There were 1,320 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in Greater Sydney in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Campbelltown (NSW) (91), Wyong (80) and Gosford (74). There were 913 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in rest of New South Wales in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Newcastle (51), Lower Hunter (41) and Wagga Wagga (40).

Victoria – There were 1,064 debtors who entered new personal insolvencies in Greater Melbourne in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Wyndham (72), Tullamarine – Broadmeadows (65) and Casey – South (63). There were 367 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in rest of Victoria in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Geelong (54), Bendigo (33) and Ballarat (29).

Queensland – There were 1,021 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in Greater Brisbane in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Springfield – Redbank (77), Ipswich Inner (60) and North Lakes (54). There were 1,141 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in rest of Queensland in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Ormeau – Oxenford (102), Townsville (101), Rockhampton (64) and Toowoomba (64).

South Australia – There were 347 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in Greater Adelaide in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Salisbury (54), Onkaparinga (41) and Playford (40). There were 106 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in rest of South Australia in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Eyre Peninsula and South West (20), Murray and Mallee (18) and Barossa (16).

Western Australia – There were 776 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in Greater Perth in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Wanneroo (114), Rockingham (81) and Swan (81). There were 199 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in rest of Western Australia in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Bunbury (38), Mid West (27) and Goldfields (25).

Tasmania – There were 89 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in Greater Hobart in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Hobart – North West (30), Hobart Inner (16) and Brighton (13). There were 110 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in rest of Tasmania in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Launceston (32), Devonport (25) and Burnie – Ulverstone (20).

Northern Territory – There were 55 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in Greater Darwin in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Darwin Suburbs (19), Palmerston (14) and Litchfield (12). There were 26 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in rest of Northern Territory in the December quarter 2017. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Alice Springs (12) and Katherine (8).

Australian Capital Territory – In the December quarter 2017, there were 113 debtors who entered a new personal insolvency in the Australian Capital Territory. The regions with the highest number of debtors were Belconnen (32), Gungahlin (32) and Tuggeranong (30).

Six lessons on how to make affordable housing funding work across Australia

From The Conversation.

A suitable construction funding model is the critical missing ingredient needed to deliver more affordable housing in Australia. Aside from short-lived programs under the Rudd government, we have seen decades of inconsistent and fragmented policies loosely directed at increasing affordable housing. These have failed to generate anything like enough new supply to meet outstanding needs.

Our latest research looked at recently built, larger-scale affordable housing projects in contrasting markets across Australia. We examined each scheme’s cost, funding sources and outcomes. We then developed a housing needs-driven model for understanding the financial and funding requirements to develop affordable housing in the diverse local conditions across the country.

Up to now, the key stumbling block has been the “funding gap” between revenue from rents paid by low-income tenants and the cost of developing and maintaining good-quality housing. The Commonwealth Treasury acknowledged this problem last year. And the problem is greatest in the urban areas where affordable housing is most needed.

What does the new model tell us?

The Affordable Housing Assessment Tool (AHAT) enables the user to calculate cost-effective ways to fund affordable housing to meet specified needs in different markets. It’s a flexible interactive spreadsheet model with an innovative feature: it enables users to embed housing needs as the driver of project and policy, rather than project financial feasibility driving who can be housed.

Affordable housing developments have recently been relatively sparse. However, our research highlighted the varied and bespoke funding arrangements being used.

Despite this variety, too often project outcomes are driven purely by funding opportunities and constraints, rather than by defined housing needs. One notable constraint is the fragmented nature of affordable housing subsidy frameworks both within and across jurisdictions.

Our case study projects generated a diversity of housing outcomes. This can be seen as an unintended positive of the bespoke nature of affordable housing provision as a result of the need to “stitch together” gap funding from multiple sources on a project-by-project basis.

Equally though, the lack of policy coherence and fit-for-purpose funding added cost and complexity to the development process. By implication, this leads to a less-than-optimal outcome for public investment. Despite providers’ best efforts, current approaches are not the most efficient way to deliver much-needed affordable housing.

What are the lessons from this research?

We applied the model to typical housing development scenarios in inner and outer metropolitan areas and regions. By doing so, we identified six key lessons for funding and financing affordable housing delivery.

1) Government help with access to land is central to affordable housing development and enhances long-term project viability.

Especially in high-pressure urban markets, not-for-profit housing developers cannot compete with the private sector for development sites. High land costs, particularly in inner cities where affordable housing demand is most extreme, can render financial viability near impossible. Having access to sites and lower-cost land were two of the most important components of feasible projects.

2) Government equity investment offers considerable potential for delivering feasible projects and net benefit to government.

How governments treat the valuation of public land with potential for affordable housing development must be reviewed. Conventionally, even where affordable housing is the intended use, governments typically insist on a land sale price based on “highest and best use”.

It would be preferable in such cases to treat the below-market value assigned to public land as a transparent subsidy input. This would mean the sale price reflects the housing needs that the development seeks to meet. That is, the land value should be priced as an affordable housing development for a specific needs cohort.

By retaining an equity stake, government could account for its input as an investment that will increase in value over time as land values appreciate.

3) Reducing up-front debt load and lowering finance costs are critical to long-term project viability.

Debt funding imposes a large cost burden over a project’s lifetime. This is ultimately paid down through tenant rents. Reducing both the cost and scale of private financing can have a significant impact on project viability.

The analysis reinforces the rationale for the Australian government’s “bond aggregator” facility for reducing financing costs for affordable housing projects. But this must come in tandem with other measures to reduce up-front debt.

4) Delivery across the range of housing needs helps to meet overall social and tenure mix objectives. This also can help improve project viability through cross-subsidy.

Mixing tenure and tenant profiles can enable affordable housing providers to produce more diverse housing that meets the full range of needs.

Cross-subsidy opportunities arising from mixed-tenure and mixed-use developments can also enhance project feasibility. By improving a provider’s financial position, this helps advance their long-term goal of adding to the stock of affordable housing. And, by providing welcome flexibility, this enables organisations to better manage development risk across different markets and cycles.

5) The financial benefit of planning bonuses is limited

Inclusionary zoning mechanisms impose affordable housing obligations on developers through the planning system. This approach potentially offers a means of securing affordable housing development sites in larger urban renewal or master-planned areas.

However, our research demonstrated that planning bonuses allowing increased dwelling numbers in return for more affordable housing have little beneficial impact on project viability. This is because the additional dwellings allowed generate additional land and/or construction costs but no matching capacity to service a larger debt.

However, planning bonuses can be useful as part of a cross-subsidy approach. In this case, they may support project viability, without necessarily resulting in any additional affordable dwellings.

6) Increasing the scale of not-for-profit provision offers financial benefits that help ensure the long-term delivery of affordable housing.

Our analysis supports the case for targeting public subsidy to not-for-profit developers (government or non-government) to maximise long-term social benefit. Investing in permanently affordable housing ensures the social dividend of affordable housing can be continued into the future.

Comparable subsidies are not preserved when allocated to private owners. They will seek to trade out at some stage, capitalising the subsidy into privatised gain.

The results of our case study analyses and modelling highlight the need to develop comprehensive funding and subsidy arrangements that account for different costs in different locations. These arrangements also must be integrated nationally to support affordable housing delivery at scale.

This study reiterates the common finding of research over the last decade: both Commonwealth and state/territory governments need to develop a coherent and long-term policy framework to provide housing across the full spectrum of need.

Authors: Laurence Troy, Research Fellow, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW; Bill Randolph, Director, City Futures – Faculty Leadership, City Futures Research Centre, Urban Analytics and City Data, Infrastructure in the Built Environment, UNSW; Ryan van den Nouwelant, Senior Research Officer – City Futures Research Centre, UNSW; Vivienne Milligan, Visiting Senior Fellow – City Futures Research Centre, Housing Policy and Practice, UNSW

How Resilient Will Consumption Growth Be If Income Growth Stays Weak?

RBA Assistant Governor (Economic) Luci Ellis spoke at the ABE Conference “Three Questions About the Outlook“.

The section on the impact of weak income growth is significant, because it examines why households are under financial pressure, and the impact of this. She says “continued weak income growth presents a particular risk to the consumption outlook in the context of high household indebtedness”.

One aspect of recent developments where Australia’s experience differs, though, relates to household income and consumption. As we discussed in the Statement, consumption growth in the major advanced economies has been quite robust, supported by strong growth in employment. In Australia, we’ve also had especially strong employment growth over the past year – more than double the rate of growth in the working-age population. But that hasn’t translated into strong consumption growth. Household income growth has been weak for a number of years, and that has weighed on consumption growth (Graph 4). Consumption growth hasn’t slowed as much as income growth. This is what you’d expect, given that households generally try to smooth their consumption through episodes of income volatility. But there’s a real question of how long that could continue if income growth stays weak. This clearly has implications for how we think about the risks to our consumption forecasts.

Graph 4: Household Consumption and Income — *Graph 4*

The weakness in incomes goes beyond the downward pressure on wage growth that I’ve already spoken about. Yes, growth in the wage price index (WPI) has stepped down. But the WPI captures a fixed pool of jobs. It abstracts from compositional change. Average earnings as measured in the national accounts have been even weaker than the WPI (Graph 5). This has not occurred because workers shifted between industries; it is also seen within industries. It might be partly driven by the end of the mining investment boom, as workers moved out of mining-related work, including in the construction and business services industries. But it seems to have been broader than that. Our central forecast is that this weakness will end as the drag from the end of the boom dissipates and spare capacity is absorbed, such that average earnings growth recovers. There is no guarantee of this, though, and therein lies the risk.

Graph 5: WPI and AENA by Sector — *Graph 5*

The living cost pressures that many households feel have therefore been an income story, not a price inflation story. Although utilities prices did increase significantly in some states in recent quarters, much of households’ regular spending has seen relatively little in the way of price increases for a number of years.

Weak income growth can run below consumption growth for a time, but not forever. If households start to see this weakness in income growth as permanent, they are likely to change their spending patterns in response. We might be seeing this in the details of the consumption figures: growth in spending on discretionary items, like travel and eating out, has slowed while growth in spending on essentials has held up (Graph 6).

Graph 6: Household Consumption — *Graph 6*

Continued weak income growth presents a particular risk to the consumption outlook in the context of high household indebtedness. Households do not just wake up one day and collectively decide to pay down their debt. But if incomes turn out weaker than they expect, or some other adverse news should arise, the households carrying the most debt might feel they have to rein in their spending quite a bit.

Banks and financial providers one step ahead of consumers who struggle with personal bias

From The Conversation.

There’s more than 30 years of research showing financial consumers have behavioural biases that can lead to poor decisions. Financial providers and banks have known this too, and have designed some products to take advantage of consumer habits rather than benefit them.

Legislation soon to be introduced to parliament is intended to curb these practices, but credit products are being left out to consumer detriment.

Regulators have relied on two strategies to help consumers with this problem. Disclosure of the nature and prospects of the products providers offer. Also, encouraging consumers to seek financial advice.

Neither of these has worked well. The Financial System Inquiry in 2014 recognised that disclosure hasn’t closed the gap in consumer capability. Worse, the providers of these products may have incentives through remuneration which may not serve the customer’s interest and only about 25% of financial consumers seek advice.

The Productivity Commission’s report on competition in financial services, illustrates many of these points in arguing for regulation of mortgage brokers. Brokers are supposed to be the customer’s agent to scout for and advise on the best mortgage terms and cost. Instead they are remunerated by mortgage providers (like the banks), take commissions and, according to the Productivity Commission, generally cost more than loans directly from a bank.

Bias in financial decision-making

Consumers are prone to a range of biases which may also impair their financial decisions. For example overconfidence may cause them to ignore new information or hold unrealistic views about how high returns will be.

As we age or as our circumstances change, our tolerance for risk also changes. As we get older our tolerance for risk decreases, while having a higher income increases it. Men are also more risk tolerant than women.

Consumers may also give too much weight to recent events and things they know already and can be unduly influenced by the opinions of friends and family.

This sort of consumer decision-making is no match for providers’ knowledge of financial conditions and product features. Banks and other financial service providers have learned from experience, but most of all their own command of consumer behaviour research.

The latter leaves providers able to design and sell products that benefit from consumers not overcoming mistakes, or at times, exacerbating mistakes.

Helping customers make better choices

In a bill soon to be before the Australian parliament, those selling financial products will have to make a “target market determination”. This records and describes the market for a product (those who would buy it). It must also set out any conditions under which the product must be distributed, for example that it can only be sold with advice.

It’s designed so that financial products meet the needs and financial situation of the people acquiring them.

There are criminal and civil penalty sanctions for failing to make and ensure products are sold in accordance with a determination. Also, for failure to revise and reissue it, if circumstances change.

Twinned with this requirement are new intervention powers for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). ASIC will be able to make interim rules, effectively prohibiting sales or imposing conditions, if continued sale would result in “significant detriment” to financial consumers.

The purpose of product regulation is clearly to allow ASIC to be more active and reduce over-reliance on ineffective disclosure, conflicted advice and drawn out dispute resolution.

Product regulation is no panacea. This version has a large gap, as credit products (for example credit cards or mortgages) do not require a target market determination. It’s not difficult to read the politics of regulation in this omission. There is also a risk that target market determinations will become pro-forma and add to compliance and not to consumer benefit. Although a description of the target market must be in the advertising, it’s not clear it must be in formal disclosure, so consumers may never read it.

Product intervention powers apply across investment, insurance and credit products but it will never be easy for ASIC to prove the risk of “significant consumer detriment”. Intervention orders also expire in 18 months unless made permanent by parliament.

The regulation of product design and distribution in the spirit of consumer safety has been commonplace (if imperfectly realised) in car, pharmaceuticals and other consumer markets, for decades. There are modest grounds for optimism that in Australia financial product safety might catch on too, but the government needs to include credit products as well.

Authors: Dimity Kingsford Smith, Professor of Law, UNSW