Where are OECD countries going with their higher fiscal deficits and public debt?
In many OECD countries ( the United States, France, Italy and Japan in particular), recent economic policies have led to the resurgence of sizeable fiscal deficits and are driving up public debt ratio s . Where is this policy leading these OECD countries in the medium term? Nothing dangerous will happen as long as central banks keep their expansionary monetary policies in place , interest rates therefore remain low and investors do not worry about rising public debt and default risk, which is the case at present (Italy being in a more unstable situation); But if interest rates rose (due to the return of inflation caused for example by a change to the functioning of labour markets) or if investor perceptions changed, these countries would be forced to shift to restrictive fiscal polic ies . The question today is whether the governments of these countries are right to bet on interest rates remaining low and on retaining the confidence of investors .