The Great Recession (2007-2009) changed the context for investment in the United States in several ways. First, it created imbalances in the economy, in terms of losses and gains between economic (businesses, households, government) as well as industrial (agriculture, manufacturing, services) sectors. These losses and gains can be measured in terms of lost output, including employment. These are imbalances to the extent that contractions in output were unevenly shared across sectors.
Second, the political environment changed as new constituencies and alliances were formed, while others were made more obvious. An example of such a long-standing alliance that became stronger was the relationship between the Federal Reserve and large, globally-competitive financial companies. This relationship was codified in the emergency recapitalization (the TARP) and in the Dodd-Frank law. New constituencies emerged or became more pronounced, for instance as unemployment and homelessness rose, and they reflected a regional character (for the reason that the financial crisis and recession were, in fact, regional crises). These new constituencies and alliances generated pressures for different kinds of policy intervention, with varying success.
And finally, the macroeconomic context changed, given changes or stickiness in the informal rules of investment (such as tax rates, interest rates, the supply of credit). Similarly, economic development through the application of new technologies, discovery and extraction of fossil fuels, and global capital flows also have shaped the macroeconomic context.
Over the next several posts, I’m going to outline the context of investment in the US immediately before and since the financial crash in 2008. I will describe the nature of investment since the crash, with a focus on the distribution of investment activity between sectors (economic and industrial) as well as the nature of investment (private fixed assets: structures, equipment, intellectual property). Finally, I’ll briefly describe the kinds of companies and regions that were poised to reap the benefits of this changing context, and contrast them against those entities that have borne the greatest burden.
The next posts will frame investment in the US with the following specific questions. First, what do I mean when I talk about investment in the United States? I will outline that question by referencing JK Galbraith’s new book (The End of Normal) as well as borrowing some insights from Hyman Minsky. Let me add that I do not mean to advance any kind of coherent theory; that is way beyond my remit at the moment. Rather, I find it useful to identify useful metrics and relationships in the data that can eventually be situated within a wider theory, or can be used to advance or refute other ones.
Second, what are the current obstacles at the geopolitical and national levels to growth in investment within the United States? Off the top of my head, I can think of several important “obstacles”: the process of domestic credit allocation (including interest rates, integrity of too-big-to-fail banks, property development); the cost of raw materials (especially oil and gas); and, military commitments and the general financing of national security. Readers of Galbraith’s book will notice these topics are quite prominent in his account, while I have spent most of my very short academic career focused on the first.
Third, what is the current progress or state of the economic recovery since 2009? There are some subsidiary descriptive questions that point to my thinking here. Which economic sectors have returned to pre-crisis trends in output growth (contribution to GDP) and which remain stalled? Which industrial sectors? How did investment in private fixed assets respond to the crisis and aftermath? What about for investment in structures, equipment, and intellectual property? (If readers want to see what I’m getting at with these questions, take a look at this article from the NYT back in April: http://nyti.ms/1zZEVct; I am essentially expanding this kind of inquiry, which has been, incidentally, the empirical base upon which most of research has been conducted).
My doctoral dissertation advisor liked to say that a solid way to organize an argument follows the formula: what; why; and, so what. The what component here is really, where is investment happening in the USA (both in sector and locational terms). The why seeks to explain the relevant processes that propel the investment we see or hinder the investment we hope for (particularly, why it should be the case that despite there being a real recovery in material terms, there should be such a slow expansion in quality employment opportunities). The so what for me really comes down to distributional fairness. In other words, something that has been on my mind the last few years is whether the parties responsible for the financial crisis and disappointing recovery were the same parties that amortized its costs, or whether there has been a systemic and successful effort to push those costs onto other parts of society. Additionally, I want to explore the durability/sustainability of the investment that is happening. At the end of the day, we all want to be a part of a successful collective endeavor–the US economy. Hopefully I’ll find much to be proud and excited about as I dig through the data. Alternatively, hopefully I can provide some insight into how to rectify the processes that point to the contrary.
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