Data and Code for: Debt Revenue and the Sustainability of Public Debt

While public debt has risen in the last two decades, the return that it offers to investors has fallen, especially relative to the return on private investment. This creates a revenue for the government as the supplier of the special services offered by public bonds, which include storage of value, safety, liquidity, and reprieve from repression. The present value of this debt revenue is large relative to the stock of public debt, keeping it sustainable even as the present value of primary balances is zero or negative. It gives rise to different policy tradeoffs than the conventional analysis of primary balances and makes different recommendation on the effects of austerity, the optimal amount of debt, or the spillovers between monetary and fiscal policy.

近二十年来，尽管公共债务(public debt)规模持续攀升，但其为投资者带来的回报率却持续走低，尤其相较于私人投资回报率而言。公共债券可提供价值储藏、安全性、流动性以及免受压制的缓冲等特殊服务，作为这些服务的供给方，政府可由此获得一项额外收益。相较于公共债务存量(stock of public debt)，这项债务收益的现值(present value)规模可观，即便财政基本余额(primary balances)的现值为零或负值，也能维持公共债务的可持续性。相较于基于财政基本余额的传统分析框架，该视角会催生截然不同的政策权衡，并在财政紧缩(austerity)的影响、最优债务规模以及货币政策与财政政策的溢出效应(spillovers)等议题上提出迥异的政策建议。