On the Failure to Reach the Optimal Government Debt Ceiling

Abel Cadenillas and Ricardo Huaman
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Abel Cadenillas: Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, University of Alberta, Central Academic Building 639, Edmonton, AB T6G 2G1, Canada

Risks, 2018, vol. 6, issue 4, 1-28

Abstract: We develop a government debt management model to study the optimal debt ceiling when the ability of the government to generate primary surpluses to reduce the debt ratio is limited. We succeed in finding a solution for the optimal debt ceiling. We study the conditions under which a country is not able to reduce its debt ratio to reach its optimal debt ceiling, even in the long run. In addition, this model with bounded intervention is consistent with the fact that, in reality, countries that succeed in reducing their debt ratio do not do so immediately, but over some period of time. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first theoretical model on the debt ceiling that accounts for bounded interventions.

Keywords: debt crisis; government debt management; optimal government debt ceiling; government debt ratio; stochastic control; decision analysis; risk management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C G0 G1 G2 G3 K2 M2 M4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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