TechTakes

From a new white paper Financing the AI boom: from cash flows to debt, h/t The Syllabus Hidden Gem of the Week

The long-term viability of the AI investment surge depends on meeting the high expectations embedded in those investments, with a disconnect between debt pricing and equity valuations. Failure to meet expectations could result in sharp corrections in both equity and debt markets. As shown in Graph 3.C, the loan spreads charged on private credit loans to AI firms are close to those charged to non-AI firms. If loan spreads reflect the risk of the underlying investment, this pattern suggests that lenders judge AI-related loans to be as risky as the average loan to any private credit borrower. This stands in stark contrast to the high equity valuations of AI companies, which imply outsized future returns. This schism suggests that either lenders may be underestimating the risks of AI investments (just as their exposures are growing significantly) or equity markets may be overestimating the future cash flows AI could generate.

Por que no los dos? But maybe the lenders are expecting a bailout... or just gullible...

That said, to put the macroeconomic consequences into perspective, the rise in AI-related investment is not particularly large by historical standards (Graph 4.A). For example, at around 1% of US GDP, it is similar in size to the US shale boom of the mid-2010s and half as large as the rise in IT investment during the dot-com boom of the 1990s. The commercial property and mining investment booms experienced in Japan and Australia during the 1980s and 2010s, respectively, were over five times as large relative to GDP.

Interesting point, if AI is basically a rounding error for GDP... But I also remember the layoffs in 2000-1 and 2014-5, they weren't evenly distributed and a lot of people got left behind, even if they weren't as bad as '08.