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The commitment benefit of consols in government debt management

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Abstract

We consider optimal government debt maturity in a deterministic economy in which the government can issue any arbitrary debt maturity structure and in which bond prices are a function of the government's current and future primary surpluses. The government sequentially chooses policy, taking into account how current choices-which impact future policy-feed back into current bond prices. We show that issuing consols constitutes the unique stationary optimal debt portfolio, as it boosts government credibility to future policy and reduces the debt financing costs.

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  • Davide Debortoli & Ricardo Nunes & Pierre Yared, 2021. "The commitment benefit of consols in government debt management," Economics Working Papers 1781, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 2021.
    • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:1781
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public debt; optimal taxation; fiscal policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

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