United States: What would be the effects of a sharp increase in low wages and a halt to growth in shale oil production?
Some of the “left-wing†Democratic candidates for the US presidential election (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, etc.) are campaigning on a platform to sharply increase low wages and lead the United States’ transition towards a low-carbon economy. This leads us to ask what the consequences would be of a radical change in US economic policy, with: A sharp increase in the minimum wage; An end to growth in shale oil production. US consumption would receive a large stimulus, but resurgent inflation (due to both the increase in wages and rising oil prices) would lead to a sharp increase in interest rates, which would spread from the United States to the rest of the world, leading to an across-the-board risk of a debt crisis and a loss of solvency.