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Assessing Debt Sustainability in a Stochastic Environment: 200 Years of Dutch Debt and Deficit Management

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  • Sweder Wijnbergen
  • Alexander France

Abstract

When debt levels approach critical levels, tax payers may revolt against the associated debt service burden. Funding problems may arise in capital markets when lenders anticipate such revolts and refuse to participate in debt auctions. We provide a stochastic framework to assess whether such problems may arise and argue that the key to fiscal sustainability in a stochastic environment is a feedback rule from debt level shocks back to corresponding adjustments in the primary surplus. We show that such feedback rules narrow future distributions of debt–output ratios and so reduce crisis probabilities. We apply the methodology to Dutch debt and deficit data spanning two centuries. Our results strongly argue for the incorporation of rules stipulating tightening fiscal policy whenever debt stocks exceed previously agreed upon targets (like in the original Eurozone Stability pact). Copyright The Author(s) 2012

Suggested Citation

  • Sweder Wijnbergen & Alexander France, 2012. "Assessing Debt Sustainability in a Stochastic Environment: 200 Years of Dutch Debt and Deficit Management," De Economist, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 219-236, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:decono:v:160:y:2012:i:3:p:219-236
    DOI: 10.1007/s10645-012-9188-7
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Andreas Schabert & Sweder van Wijnbergen, 2006. "Debt, Deficits, and Destabilizing Monetary Policy in Open Economies," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-045/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff & Miguel A. Savastano, 2003. "Debt Intolerance," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(1), pages 1-74.
    3. Davig, Troy & Leeper, Eric M. & Walker, Todd B., 2011. "Inflation and the fiscal limit," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 31-47, January.
    4. Sweder van Wijnbergen & Nina Budina, 2011. "Fiscal sustainability, volatility and oil wealth," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 19(4), pages 639-666, October.
    5. Budina, Nina & van Wijnbergen, Sweder, 2007. "Quantitative approaches to fiscal sustainability analysis : a new World Bank tool applied to Turkey," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4169, The World Bank.
    6. Andreas Schabert & Sweder J G van Wijnbergen, 2014. "Sovereign Default and the Stability of Inflation-Targeting Regimes," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 62(2), pages 261-287, June.
    7. Trehan, Bharat & Walsh, Carl E, 1991. "Testing Intertemporal Budget Constraints: Theory and Applications to U.S. Federal Budget and Current Account Deficits," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(2), pages 206-223, May.
    8. Sweder van Wijnbergen & Nina Budina, 2011. "Fiscal Sustainability, Volatility and Oil Wealth: A Stochastic Analysis of Fiscal Spending Rules," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 11-068/2, Tinbergen Institute, revised 16 May 2011.
    9. Frits Bos, 2007. "The Dutch fiscal framework; history, current practice and the role of the CPB," CPB Document 150, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    10. Bohn, Henning, 2007. "Are stationarity and cointegration restrictions really necessary for the intertemporal budget constraint?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 1837-1847, October.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Deficits; Debt sustainability; Fiscal rules; E62; H62; H63; H68;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
    • H68 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Forecasts of Budgets, Deficits, and Debt

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