We study the dynamics of U.S. public debt in a parsimonious VAR. We find that including debt feedback ensures the stationarity of debt while standard VARs excluding debt may imply an explosive debt path. We also find that the response of debt to inflation or interest shocks is not robust and...

We study how macroeconomic shocks affect U.S. public debt dynamics using a VAR with debt feedback. Following a fiscal austerity shock, the debt ratio initially declines and then returns to its pre-shock path. Yet, the effect is not statistically significant. In a weak economic environment, the...

Wolfgang von Eichborn, Bundesfinanzhof, schlägt in seinem Kommentar das Konzept der »selbststabilisierenden Anleihen« vor, die die Verantwortung für die Finanzierungs- und Konsolidierungsnotwendigkeiten auch übermäßig verschuldeter Staaten wieder dem Kräftespiel derjenigen aussetzen, die...

We use a panel of 21 OECD countries from 1970 to 2009 to investigate the effects of different fiscal adjustment strategies on long-term interest rates - a key fiscal indicator reflecting the costs of government debt service. A government confronted with high deficits and rising debt will sooner...

We develop a closed economy model to study the interactions among sovereign risk premia, fiscal limits, and fiscal policy. The stochastic fiscal limits, which measure the ability and willingness of the government to service its debt, arise endogenously from a dynamic Laffer curve. The...

A fiscal shock due to a shift in taxes or in government spending will, at some point in time, constrain the future path of taxes and spending, since the government's intertemporal budget constraint will eventually have to be met. This simple fact is surprisingly overlooked in analyses of the...

Wolfgang von Eichborn, Bundesfinanzhof, schlägt in seinem Kommentar das Konzept der »selbststabilisierenden Anleihen« vor, die die Verantwortung für die Finanzierungs- und Konsolidierungsnotwendigkeiten auch übermäßig verschuldeter Staaten wieder dem Kräftespiel derjenigen aussetzen, die...

This volume includes five self-contained chapters in the fields of public debt and fiscal transfer schemes. After an introduction to the topic, chapter 2 shows that the institutional setting of fiscal policy making needs to be considered when assessing the sustainability of fiscal policy. Using...

The German debt brake forces the German government to target a very specific public deficit to GDP ratio. A ruling of the German constitutional court has drawn attention to the debt brake, as it is to be enforced more tightly than the federal German government previously thought. In this...