Según Tyler Cowen, si la teoría austriaca del ciclo económico explicara la presente crisis, hubiéramos vivido una reducción del consumo durante la fase del boom, ya que más recursos destinados a la (mal)inversión a largo plazo implica menos recursos destinados a la producción de bienes de consumo.
Murphy ilustra con su ejemplo del sushi que inversión y consumo pueden aumentar al mismo tiempo a costa del mantenimiento del capital. Según Murphy lo que sucede durante la etapa del boom es aumento de la inversión y del consumo y mayor consumo de capital.
Cowen concede (comentario Oct 21, 2008 9:44:23 PM) que Murphhy tiene razón en que inversión y consumo pueden aumentar al mismo tiempo si se produce consumo de capital, pero afirma que eso no es lo que ha sucedido esta vez.
Murphy propone un test empírico, basado en las implicaciones de la teoría austriaca del ciclo, para resolver de una vez por todas la disputa:
(1) If I'm right, housing prices should have gone up when Fed was cutting rates, and they should have peaked/started falling when Fed starting raising them.
(2) If Tyler is right, housing prices should have gone up with increased savings in foreign countries that invest in US assets. We could probably refine this some; help here. E.g. maybe we want to look at growth in Treasury holdings by the Bank of China. And then housing prices should peak / fall when the foreign banks slow down their purchases.
(3) If Tyler is right, rising home prices should be accompanied by a rising (or at least stable) dollar. After all, if it's foreign savings coming in that are pumping up the housing sector, that has to put upward pressure on the US dollar. (I grant this this is self-serving, since we know what happened to the dollar. But the direction is right, don't you agree? I.e. if Tyler's story were true, wouldn't it have propped up the dollar?)
(4) I admit I haven't fully worked out all the nuts and bolts of it, but surely the theory that there was massive capital consumption occurring is consistent with a falling dollar. As I say, it's a bit tricky because the Austrian story is that people were consuming capital without being aware of it.
(...)
(5) Tyler's theory shouldn't require a major recession, whereas mine does.
And the beauty of (5) is that it's still not decided! So I will say this, if unemployment has peaked, then I am wrong. We have not yet begun to recess, if the ABCT explains what happened with housing.
Habrá que revisitar estos puntos en los próximos meses (algunos ya podrían responderse ahora pero yo no tengo los datos, Murphy parece insinuar que apuntan en su dirección).
