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El otro día a cuenta del artículo de The Wall Street Journal (copio debajo el texto sin traducir porque es de pago) se discutía sobre la salud de la economía. Rara vez escribo de estos temas pero el de la economía española me preocupa especialmente ahora. Ojalá me equivoque, pero la situación actual me recuerda peligrosamente a la que vivimos en el año 99 y 2000 con la burbuja Internet y esa fase de locura transitoria que atravesó la economía en general, una euforia que desafiaba la lógica y que pagamos con creces en 2002 y 2003. Ahora mismo la bolsa está en máximos (aunque en las últimas semanas con dudas), los datos económicos son muy buenos y pocas cosas hacen indicar que nos vayamos a sumergir en una crisis. Así que probablemente este es el momento más peligroso. Porque hay señales que no nos tienen que hacer ninguna gracia:

-Las constructoras han creado una miniburbuja en el Ibex cuando el ciclo toca a su fin, algo que carece de lógica cuando todas las perspectivas del sector son a iniciar una “leve” contracción en 2007. Que sea leve o no depende de muchos factores, pero da la impresión de que, al margen de opas y fusiones, el inversor está actuando con cierta ligereza. Muchos pueden quedarse pillados en valores tan pronto como en enero.

-El gobierno ha aprobado unos presupuesto expansivos, algo que puede indicar temores de una contracción económica por la vía del consumo. El presupuesto expansivo puede suplir una parte del freno del consumo (que ya es un hecho, aunque no significativo) pero también puede afectar a la inflación. Es un riesgo calculado del gobierno, que por lo demás ha decidido poner el piloto automático en temas económicos y no ha hecho prácticamente nada por reformar la economía.

-Muchos economistas, entre llos José Barea, recuerdan que el problema del déficit comercial y el diferencial de inflación afectan la productividad, y es un problema que se agrava con el tiempo. Deprendemos del ladrillo y el consumo, y sin pinchan tenemos pocas alternativas para hacer frente a una crisis.

Son unas cuantas señales, pero hay muchas más que indican que algo está pasando, no es bueno y a corto o medio plazo pueden hacer mucho daño a la economía. El business as usual está muy bien, pero los problemas coyunturales se están convirtiendo en estructurales y eso dificulta la capacidad de reacción de una economía. El año próximo puede que no pase nada y que, ayudados por la buena situación económica de Europa y Estados Unidos capeemos el temporal. O puede que entremos en un ciclo complicado. Lo que sorprende es la alegría con la que los inversores encaran el futuro y la aparente tranquilidad de la sociedad, que recuerda a crisis pasadas. La economía no puede ir bien siempre, y llevamos muchos años en racha. Tal vez demasiados.

Deconstructing Spain
December 18, 2006

Spain’s economy is booming. So, more dramatically, is its housing market, with prices up 180% in the past decade. Rising wages and low interest rates fuel the housing demands of the upwardly mobile in this Iberian tiger.

Here’s a reality check: All fiestas must end, or at least wind down. In this case, the thriving housing market covers up structural shortcomings in the economy to which the center-left government has paid scant attention. For Spain’s sake, and the euro zone’s, let’s hope that changes soon.

Spain is disproportionately important to Europe’s economic fortunes. Though its own economy is about 11% of the euro zone’s, in the past five years it has accounted for a whopping 32% of the growth in demand among the countries that use the single currency. In other words, Spanish consumers keep the EU going.
[Building Growth]

Much of that spending goes into housing. Prices are still rising, albeit at a slower pace. In Spain, “slower” means prices at the end of September still rose 9.8% compared to the same month last year. Alan Greenspan might call that more than just “a little froth.”

Even more dramatic is the accompanying boom in construction. The government offers a wide array of incentives like tax exemptions and a lower capital gains tax, to boost home ownership. This year alone about 800,000 homes will be built, more than double the number in France, which has 17 million more inhabitants and where property prices rose a respectable 128% in the past 10 years.

Home ownership is now at 85%. Second-home buyers, domestic or foreign, won’t be able to keep up demand at 800,000 homes a year. More than 80% of Spanish mortgages are structured with variable rates, meaning that the European Central Bank’s gradual monetary tightening often translates straight into higher mortgage payments.

Much of the Spanish construction seems to be for investment purposes and not for residential or commercial space that’s going to be filled immediately. In Sesena, for instance, authorities have approved the development of 13,500 homes for up to 40,000 people. But the small town near Madrid has a population of only 10,000.

Then there’s corruption, which also raises prices. The Spanish media is awash in stories of bribes for issuing building permits. In March, the mayor and town councilors of the holiday resort of Marbella were arrested in a multi-billion-euro money-laundering scandal. Antonio Vercher, the specially appointed prosecutor for town planning and the environment, has hinted that up to 100,000 illegally built houses could be demolished.

How much longer can the building boom continue? Many of the country’s biggest banks seem to think the answer is, not long — which explains why they have been selling stakes in Spain’s leading construction companies.

A property correction would have a big impact on the economy, whose two main drivers are consumer spending, which itself is driven by the wealth effect generated by rising property prices, and the construction sector. This is a self-feeding cycle that could come to an abrupt stop.

Last year, the daily Expansión cited an internal report prepared by the Spanish secretary-general for employment, Valeriano Gomez, warning that “the high concentration of economic growth and employment in the construction sector in recent years represents a major risk in the event of a possible (and expected) contraction of this sector.” Since then things have only gotten worse. As the nearby chart shows, the construction sector now accounts for 10.4% of the Spanish GDP, nearly twice the euro-zone average.

Absent a nimble policy response, Spain faces a painful economic readjustment ahead. This may sound hard to believe given that for the past 10 years the economy has known only one direction: arriba. Economic growth averaged 3.6% a year during that time, almost double the euro-zone average, and unemployment has been cut to about 8% from over 20% in the 1990s.

But beneath these impressive figures is another story. GDP per capita has barely budged. Half the growth over the past five years has been due to immigration, the government recently said. Labor productivity actually fell and is expected to fall even further, remaining below the euro zone average.

Construction, a mostly sheltered sector, is not the kind of industry that yields huge productivity gains to compete in a global economy. Once it starts unwinding, the excess labor force will be difficult to absorb elsewhere in the economy.

Any prescription for a fix would look to diversify and free up the economy. Businesses have to deal with too much red tape, the energy markets await deregulation, and hiring and firing rules remain among the most restrictive in the OECD. The government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero seems far more content to ride the economic coattails of reforms introduced by its predecessors. But unless Madrid tackles these issues, Spain’s boom times may soon be followed by a return to the more familiar mediocrity of the past.

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