Is it certain that below-growth interest rates are a good idea?
Since the start of the 2010s, long-term interest rates have been below growth rates in OECD countries. This configuration has the obvious advantage of ensuring the solvency of all indebted economic agents and enabling them to run up considerable debt. This is why the choice of central banks to drive interest rates below growth rates is generally welcomed. But does this not overlook a number of dangers associated with this inversion of the relative levels of interest rates and growth rates? If economic agents take advantage of this inversion to borrow heavily, it becomes irreversible, as a return to normal would trigger a debt crisis. Central banks therefore lose the ability to return to even a slightly more restrictive monetary policy; The fundamental value of financial or real estate assets can no longer be calculated. This is because when interest rates are lower than the growth rate, the discounted value of the future income provided by holding these assets is infinite: any asset price value becomes possible, since there is no longer any force restoring it back towards its fundamental value; bubbles therefore become systematic and permanent; The sharp rise in asset prices, also due to the inability to calculate their fundamental value when interest rates are lower than the growth rate, leads to a sharp, unjustifiable rise in wealth inequality. This is especially the case as low-income households hold primarily risk-free savings whose returns fall, whereas high-income households hold assets whose prices rise.