I've pretty much heard three schools of thought on the subject:

    1. public debt isn't the same as private debt since the government is expected to last indefinitely, so the government never actually has to pay back the debt. So long as a country's GDP grows at the same rate as the debt, it can run deficits indefinitely without becoming insolvent (or inflating it's way out of the problem).

    2. While GDP growth >= debt growth ensures the government stays solvent, structural deficits slow economic growth in the long run as capital that would have otherwise been invested in productive ventures instead finances government consumption. (I guess the outcome here would be different if the government used the deficit to fund capital investments with a normal rate of return?)

    3. Government debt = private net financial assets in a fiat currency environment, so a country with no debt would have no private financial assets. (this is presumably bad)

    I think 3 is basically the MMT argument, which to my understanding is widely discredited. However, I'm not sure whether 1 or 2 is more in line with economic orthodoxy.

    Are structural government deficits generally considered "bad"?
    byu/Top_Two408 inAskEconomics



    Posted by Top_Two408

    Leave A Reply
    Share via