The reason for such a rejection is that the short-term impact of structural reforms does not simply depend on when they are implemented but how, the credibility of reforms and their interactions with other policy measures.
And if structural reforms are well designed along such parameters, they can in fact have a largely neutral, if not positive, impact on short-term demand even in adverse cyclical conditions. 5 Then, there is a line of argumentation stemming from the more general concern of increasing inequality in our economies. In the context of structural reforms, this issue has to be taken seriously.