Presentations

On December 10, 2019, William White participated in a luncheon panel addressing this question at the C D Howe Institute in Toronto. Other panel members were Dawn Desjardins, Deputy Chief economist of the Royal Bank of Canada, and Mark Zelmer, former Deputy Superintendent of Financial Institutions at OSFI. Mr. White began the discussion with an overview of global developments. He concluded that growing stresses in the global economy, not least rising debt levels, could trigger a recession but would certainly aggravate one arising from other causes. Since our macro instruments to respond were now much constrained, serious thought should be given by governments as to how orderly debt restructuring might be facilitated.

On November 18, 2019, William White made the introductory presentation for a three day conference sponsored by UNCTAD in Geneva, Switzerland. He focused on how ultra easy monetary in the advanced market economies had led to capital inflows into emerging markets (a “boom”) and increased their vulnerability to a subsequent outflow (a “bust”). Inadequate domestic policies and changes in the sources of funding (not least corporate issues of dollar denominated bonds) have increased both the likelihood of a forthcoming crisis and its possible severity. The policies needed to help prevent such a crisis, to manage such a crisis and to help resolve such a crisis (orderly restructuring and forgiveness) remain highly inadequate.

William White made a presentation on 18 September, at a conference organized by the NAEC group at the OECD in Paris, on “Averting Systemic Collapse”. He argued that we need to embrace the idea (to understand, to accept the narrative) that the global economy is a complex, adaptive system where stocks (not flows) really matter. Public policy will be much improved if we accept this reality and the need for a systems approach to public policy. In contrast, the current belief  that we can understand the system by understanding its individual components ( a silo approach), has led to a potentially catastrophic buildup of stocks of debt and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These stocks threatens not only economic stability but even human  survival. At the same time, the “good will” required to find political solutions to these problems, affecting everyone, has seriously declined. At the least, there is an urgent need to change the prevailing analytical framework in economics.

Mr White made a presentation in Paris on  16 September at a conference organized by a new German think tank, Forum for a New Economy. He began by noting some fundamental problems in providing estimates for the cost of either a Green New Deal (as recently proposed in the US) or for the costs of climate change mitigation. The focus of his remarks was on how fiscal policy, financial regulatory policy and monetary policy might be adapted to respond to climate change and to contribute to climate change mitigation. His greatest concern is that governments will shirk their own responsibility for action (not least, failing to impose much  higher carbon taxes) using the excuse that action by regulatory agencies and central banks will suffice.

https://newforum.org/climate/where-will-the-money-come-from-how-to-finance-a-green-new-deal/

On the 12 February, Bill White led off a panel discussion at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. He contended that past policy measures directed to preventing economic crises have not been adequate. Indeed, there are grounds for belief that some of the policies followed in recent years have raised both the probability and the expected costs of a future crisis. When it comes, we will also find that our capacity both to manage and resolve crises has become increasingly inadequate.

http://www.aei.org/events/global-financial-market-risks-entering-unchartered-territory/

Bill White made an introductory set of comments at a 21 January conference in Zurich organized by the Council on Economic Policies. Motivated by the recognition that dealing with climate change would prove very costly, the conference examined the issue of whether the governance structure (mandates, instruments  and accountability mechanisms) of central banking and financial regulation needed to be revisited.  White’s comments covered the historical origins of current practices, the underlying assumptions of current practices, the need for review of those basic assumptions and some possible implications of such a review.

ZurichCEPJan2019

On 18 January, Bill White made a presentation to a conference at the University of Toronto organized jointly by the OECD (the NAEC group) and the Fields Institute of Applied Mathematics. Bill concluded that another crisis could by no means be ruled out and that their were serious shortcomings in the official sector’s capacity to both manage and resolve (via debt restructuring) such a crisis.

TorontoFields2019

On 15 November Bill White participated in a charity event in Zurich to support Swiss cancer research. The event consisted of an exchange of views about the economic outlook, between Bill and Paul McNamara, an investment director at GAM in London.

Bill White made  a presentation on 24 November at a conference organized by the Monetative group at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. The conference was directed to analyzing how digitalization might lead to changes in the current monetary system. Bill focusered on shortcomings in the current system, not least recurrent credit driven “booms and busts”, and concluded that these shortcomings provided a prima facie case for thinking about alternative monetary systems.

FrankfurtMonetativeNov2018

http://conference2018.monetative.de/economic-outlook-and-the-need-for-monetary-reform/

Bill White made the keynote presentation at the end of a 19 November conference on macroprudential policies, organized jointly by the IMF, the Danish National Bank and CBS in Copenhagen. Although many commentators seem to feel that such policies will ensure financial stability in the future, Bill noted that policymakers face many difficulties in conducting them properly. Indeed, they might even contribute to financial instability by encouraging the pursuit of “lower for longer” monetary policy with its many unintended consequences.

CopenhagenMacroprudentialNov2018