Government Solvency, Austerity and Fiscal Consolidation in the OECD: A Keynesian Appraisal of Transversality and No Ponzi Game Conditions

Karim Azizi, Nicolas Canry, Jean-Bernard Chatelain and Bruno Tinel

EconStor Preprints from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics

Abstract: This paper investigates the relevance of the No-Ponzi game condition for public debt (i.e. the public debt growth rate has to be lower than the real interest rate, a necessary assumption for Ricardian equivalence) and of the transversality condition for the GDP growth rate (i.e. the GDP growth rate has to be lower than the real interest rate). First, on the unbalanced panel of 21 countries from 1961 to 2010 available in OECD database, those two conditions were simultaneously validated only for 29% of the cases under examination. Second, those two conditions were more frequent in the 1980s and the 1990s when monetary policies were more restrictive. Third, in tune with the Keynesian view, when the real interest rate is higher than the GDP growth, it corresponds to 75% of the cases of the increases of the debt/GDP ratio but to only 43% of the cases of the decreases of the debt/GDP ratio (fiscal consolidations).

Keywords: Government solvency; Austerity; Fiscal consolidation; No-Ponzi game condition; transversality condition; budgetary policy; monetary policy; economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E43 E5 E6 H6 O4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-04-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fdg and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/72550/1/Ponzi%20public%20debt.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Government Solvency, Austerity and Fiscal Consolidation in the OECD: A Keynesian Appraisal of Transversality and No Ponzi Game Conditions (2013)
Working Paper: Government Solvency, Austerity and Fiscal Consolidation in the OECD: A Keynesian Appraisal of Transversality and No Ponzi Game Conditions (2013)
Working Paper: Government Solvency, Austerity and Fiscal Consolidation in the OECD: A Keynesian Appraisal of Transversality and No Ponzi Game Conditions (2013)
Working Paper: Government Solvency, Austerity and Fiscal Consolidation in the OECD: A Keynesian Appraisal of Transversality and No Ponzi Game Conditions (2013)
Working Paper: Government Solvency, Austerity and Fiscal Consolidation in the OECD: A Keynesian Appraisal of Transversality and No Ponzi Game Conditions (2013)
Working Paper: Government Solvency, Austerity and Fiscal Consolidation in the OECD: A Keynesian Appraisal of Transversality and No Ponzi Game Conditions (2013)
Working Paper: Government Solvency, Austerity and Fiscal Consolidation in the OECD: A Keynesian Appraisal of Transversality and No Ponzi Game Conditions (2013)
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