TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hall,Robert E.
TI  - Fiscal Stability of High-Debt Nations under Volatile Economic Conditions
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18797
PY  - 2013
Y2  - February 2013
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18797
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18797.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Robert E. Hall
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA  94305-6010
Tel: 650/723-2215
E-Mail: rehall@gmail.com
AB  - Using a recursive empirical model of the real interest rate, GDP growth, and the primary government deficit in the U.S., I solve for the ergodic distribution of the debt/GDP ratio. If such a distribution exists, the government is satisfying its intertemporal budget constraint. One key finding is that historical fiscal policy would bring the current high debt ratio back to its normal level of 0.35 over the coming decade. Forecasts of continuing increases in the ratio over the decade make the implicit assumption that fiscal policy has shifted dramatically. In the variant of the model that matches the forecast, the government would not satisfy its intertemporal budget constraint if the policy was permanent. The willingness of investors to hold U.S. government debt implies a belief that the high-deficit policy is transitory.
ER  -