When Should Public Debt Be Reduced? /
What considerations should guide public debt policy going forward? Should debt be reduced to achieve normative anchors (such as 60 percent of GDP), should it be increased further to finance a big public investment push, or should the existing debt be serviced forever? We argue that, for countries wi...
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| Altri autori: | , |
| Natura: | Periodico |
| Lingua: | English |
| Pubblicazione: |
Washington, D.C. :
International Monetary Fund,
2015.
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| Serie: | Staff Discussion Notes; Staff Discussion Notes ;
No. 2015/010 |
| Accesso online: | Full text available on IMF |
| Riassunto: | What considerations should guide public debt policy going forward? Should debt be reduced to achieve normative anchors (such as 60 percent of GDP), should it be increased further to finance a big public investment push, or should the existing debt be serviced forever? We argue that, for countries with ample fiscal space (little risk of encountering a fiscal crisis), raising distortive taxes merely to bring the debt down is a treatment cure that is worse than the disease. High public debt of course is costly, but it is a sunk cost only made worse by efforts to pay down the debt through distortionary taxation. Living with the debt is the welfare-maximizing policy. In decisions vis-a-vis the big push for public investment, golden-rule considerations remain salient, with due account taken of the additional servicing costs (and associated distortive taxation) from the resulting buildup of public debt. |
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| Descrizione del documento: | <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required |
| Descrizione fisica: | 1 online resource (26 pages) |
| Natura: | Mode of access: Internet |
| ISSN: | 2617-6750 |
| Accesso: | Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students |