Is abnormal austerity (wage, fiscal) necessary to please financial markets?
A frequently heard criticism of financial markets is that to please them and to obtain low interest rates, countries should: Conduct a wage austerity policy, which reduces companies’ production costs, increases their earnings, and normally stimulates the supply side of countries’ economies; Conduct a fiscal austerity policy, which reduces the public debt and ensures fiscal solvency. What apparently is needed, therefore, is low wages, a skewing of income distribution at the expense of employees, and a reduced fiscal deficit to prevent a rise in interest rates caused by a rise in sovereign risk premia. We compare OECD countries to determine whether this depressing theory is correct. We see that this theory is correct to a limited extent for wage austerity, but more significantly for fiscal austerity