If the potential growth rate declines and policies are implemented without considering this, there is the danger of overestimating the negative GDP gap in absolute terms in a time of crisis, and this could lead to excessive policy responses. The expression “excess” itself already means that there are social costs entailed.
It has taken courage to make the efforts to escape this trap over the past several years, and so it is very regrettable that the importance of these efforts has not been well recognized. Looking back in the future, this may come to be seen as an additional social cost that we have had to pay to overcome the global financial crisis.