Risk of crisis, demand for money and risk aversion
Since the start of 2020, governments and central banks in OECD countries have wanted to ward off two otherwise certain crises: An economic crisis, which would have occurred had the highly expansionary fiscal policies not bolstered companies and household incomes; A public debt crisis, which would have occurred had the monetisation of fiscal deficits and highly expansionary monetary policies not been put in place. But this desire to avert crises has led to a considerable expansion in the money supply, which will give rise to a monetary crisis (asset price bubbles, shift in savings to safe haven assets), unless demand for money increases as much as the money supply. As demonstrated by the case of Japan, this is possible if long-term interest rates remain very low (which discourages bond holdings) and if risk aversion remains high (which discourages holdings of risky assets such as equities or real estate). Paradoxically, a (monetary) crisis could be triggered by a fall in risk aversion.