IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/elg/ejeepi/v9y2012i1p91-108.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The simple macroeconomics of fiscal austerity: Public debt,deficits and deficit caps

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas I. Palley

    (New America Foundation, Washington DC)

Abstract

This paper explores the macroeconomics of fiscal austerity. A binding budget deficit cap makes the economy more volatile by turning the government budget into an automatic destabilizer. Public debt helps maintain aggregate demand (AD) in the presence of a lower price level because a lower price level increases the real value of public interest payments and also has a positive wealth effect. That makes public debt significantly different from private debt. If the economy is subject to a binding deficit cap public debt may no longer stabilize output. This is because increased real interest payments may be matched by spending cuts, giving rise to a negative balanced budget multiplier.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas I. Palley, 2012. "The simple macroeconomics of fiscal austerity: Public debt,deficits and deficit caps," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 9(1), pages 91-108.
    • Handle: RePEc:elg:ejeepi:v:9:y:2012:i:1:p91-108
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.elgaronline.com/abstract/journals/ejeep/9-1/ejeep.2012.01.07.xml
    Download Restriction: Restricted access
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Di Domenico, Lorenzo, 2021. "Stability and determinants of the public debt-to-GDP ratio: an Input Output – Stock Flow Consistent approach," MPRA Paper 109970, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Stefano di Bucchianico, 2019. "A bit of Keynesian debt-to-GDP arithmetic for deficit-capped countries," Bulletin of Political Economy, Bulletin of Political Economy, vol. 13(1), pages 55-83, June.
    3. Di Domenico, Lorenzo, 2021. "Stability and determinants of the public debt-to-GDP ratio: an Input Output – Stock Flow Consistent approach," MPRA Paper 110460, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Gennaro Zezza, 2012. "The impact of fiscal austerity in the Eurozone," Review of Keynesian Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 1(0), pages 37-54.
    5. Stefano Di Bucchianico, 2021. "Negative Interest Rate Policy to Fight Secular Stagnation: Unfeasible, Ineffective, Irrelevant, or Inadequate?," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(4), pages 687-710, October.
    6. Greg Hannsgen, 2014. "Fiscal Policy, Chartal Money, Mark-up Dynamics and Unemployment Insurance in a Model of Growth and Distribution," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(3), pages 487-523, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Â fiscal austerity; budget deficit cap; public debt; lower price level;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:elg:ejeepi:v:9:y:2012:i:1:p91-108. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Phillip Thompson (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elgaronline.com/ejeep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.