Thursday, November 29, 2018

Uh Oh (Mexico Edition)

Most countries do not have independent central banks.

Politicians don’t like independent central banks. Part of this is probably personal (it stands to reason that people who run for office that control things probably actually prefer to control things). But part of it is sketchier: if you’re a kleptocrat, getting your hands on a country’s bank might be the ultimate payoff.

This probably explains why economists have found, that while most central banks are not independent, the economies of countries with independent banks tend to perform better.

Mexico has not always performed well economically, but has had a pretty good run for about 40 years. It’s now the 15th largest economy in the world by exchange rates (93rd percentile), and 11th-12th largest by PPP (94th percentile), while its per capita GDP by exchange rates is around 70th (about the 61st percentile), and using PPP it’s in the ranked in the high 60’s (about the 64th percentile).

Part of this was a move to make their central bank more independent in 1994.

But, Mexico just elected a new government which takes office on December 1, 2018. And that government has appointed an official close to the incoming president as deputy governor of the central bank (at least the guy is an economist).

This is not necessarily bad. But as a sign, it’s sort of disturbing. American presidents, for example, may appoint members of the Board of Governors of the Federal System (subject to the advice and consent of the Senate). But it’s hard to come up with the name of any president whose appointed a political insider to one of those positions. The closest thing to this may be when Clinton moved Alan Blinder from the White House’s Council of Economics Advisors over to the Fed in 1994 (but Blinder was primarily a well-known academic, who while strongly Democratic has been in and out of different administrations and positions).

Anyway, this is a big enough deal that the appointment is getting coverage from the Wall Street Journal.

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