What is the sequence for economic policies if there are excess savings?
We can take Japan and the euro zone as examples of countries that have chronic excess savings over investment. What should then the economic policy reaction be? We believe this reaction should be, in the following order: A highly expansionary monetary policy, with a fall in real interest rates, since the neutral interest rate is very low . The examples of Japan and the euro zone show that this policy, which normally has an impact on private savings and investment , has been used ; An increase in public investments and public spending that have a positive impact on long-term growth (education, research, active public labour market spending); neither Japan nor the euro zone has done this; Lastly, and only at the end, stimulation of consumption: incentives for wage increases, transfer payments to households and tax cuts for households. The Japanese government is actually trying to push companies to increase wages; in the euro zone, wages as a whole are accelerating, which is sometimes (France) due to economic policies; the fiscal policy for the euro zone taken as a whole is not expansionary yet.