On the Limitations of Government Borrowing: a Framework for Empirical Testing
On the Limitations of Government Borrowing: a Framework for Empirical Testing
复制标题
论政府借款的局限性：实证检验框架
DOI：
10.3386/w1632
复制
发表时间：
1985
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Marjorie Flavin
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
James D. Hamilton;Marjorie Flavin
本文试图从经验上区分两种关于政府借贷局限性的观点。根据一种观点，没有什么能阻止政府永久性的预算赤字，仅仅通过发行新债来支付不断增长的债务负担的利息，另一种观点认为，除非政府做出可信的承诺，以现值来平衡其预算，否则债权人不愿意购买政府债务。我们表明，区分这些可能性在数学上等同于测试持续的货币通胀是否可能是由投机推动的，或者仅仅是由经济基本面驱动的。针对这一经济问题所进行的实证检验使我们得出这样的结论：战后美国的赤字在很大程度上与政府预算必须按现值平衡的命题相一致。
This paper seeks to distinguish empirically between two views on the limitations of government borrowing. According to one view, nothing precludes the government from running a permanent budget deficit, paying interest due on the growing debt load simply by issuing new debt, An alternative perspective holds that creditors would be unwilling to purchase government debt unless the government made a credible commitment to balance its budget in present value terms. We show that distinguishing between these possibilities is mathematically equivalent to testing whether a continuing currency inflation might be fueled by speculation alone or is instead driven solely by economic fundamentals. Empirical tests which have been developed for this economic question lead us to conclude that postwar U.S. deficits are largely consistent with the proposition that the government budget must be balanced in present-value terms.