If oil prices remain low, it may quickly become necessary to take a critical look at the scale of welfare schemes and public sector services, and it may also be necessary to increase taxes. If, later in the business cycle, measures are called for to curb unemployment, they should be designed to be readily reversible and in such a way that they do not erode government finances in the long term. Conclusion By way of introduction, I posed the following question: is our economy sufficiently robust to cope with the fall in oil prices without a new round of major structural adjustments? Our financial system is in a stronger position to cope with a new downturn than it was in the 1980s. We have avoided a debt bubble of the scale we witnessed last time. However, I am in doubt as to the financial industry’s long-term restructuring capacity. Norway must endorse the development of a new architecture for the global financial system. This is a demanding and long-term process, and we cannot expect all the problems to be solved over night. On the other hand, if we are to have any hope of a more stable and predictable world economy, the only real alternative is to enhance international codes for financial markets. We have observed that confidence in the krone is fragile. In order to restore confidence and maintain a stable exchange rate, monetary policy must be a credible anchor for expectations of continued low price inflation.
The crisis in Asia spread to Russia, where the decline in commodity prices led to an even further deterioration in government finances. The announcement that Russia could no longer service its debt was met with strong reactions in global financial markets in August and September. There were growing fears that the world economy would be caught in a financial crash. Many investors withdrew from small and risky markets, particularly in Latin America. The Brazilian currency came under pressure. It was difficult to raise loan capital even in the most advanced markets. As financial institutions throughout the world experienced growing losses, fears of a world economic depression intensified. Reductions in interest rates in the US and Europe facilitated access to credit and prevented a market collapse. Measures perceived as credible were finally implemented to resolve the Japanese banking crisis. Additional capital was allocated to the International Monetary Fund. There are still many challenges ahead. Brazil and Russia are running government budget deficits and are having problems establishing a credible monetary policy. China is bearing substantial costs as a result of the crisis in surrounding countries and may experience difficulties of its own. Other countries may also feel the contagion effect. However, even though the outlook points to lower growth in the global economy this year than forecast earlier, fears of a worldwide depression have receded. This is by no means the first time we have experienced an international financial crisis.