TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hall,George J.
AU  - Sargent,Thomas J.
TI  - Interest Rate Risk and Other Determinants of Post-WWII U.S. Government Debt/GDP Dynamics
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15702
PY  - 2010
Y2  - January 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15702
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15702.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
George Hall
Department of Economics, Mail Stop 21
Brandeis University
 P.O. Box 549110
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02454-9110
Tel: 781-736-2242
Fax: 781- 736-2269
E-Mail: ghall@brandeis.edu

Thomas J. Sargent
Department of Economics
New York University
19 W. 4th Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY  10012
Tel: 612/373-4383
Fax: 650/723-1687
E-Mail: thomas.sargent@nyu.edu
AB  - This paper uses the sequence of government budget constraints to motivate estimates of interest payments on the U.S. Federal government debt.  We explain why our estimates differ conceptually and quantitatively from those  reported by the U.S. government. We use our estimates to account for contributions to the evolution of the debt to GDP ratio made by  inflation,  growth, and nominal returns paid on debts of different maturities.
ER  -