At present inflation and nominal interest rates are low and constant (so for this question, assume they are both zero and constant). Consider a country with a public debt to GDP ratio of 100 per cent, which the mainstream economists consider to be dangerously high. The mainstream prescription is to run primary fiscal surpluses to stabilise and then reduce the debt ratio. Under the circumstances given, this strategy will only work if there is real GDP growth.
Answer: False
The answer is False.
First, some background theory and conceptual development.
While Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) places no particular importance in the public debt to GDP ratio for a sovereign government, given that insolvency is not an issue, the mainstream debate is dominated by the concept. The unnecessary practice of fiat currency-issuing governments of issuing public debt $-for-$ to match public net spending (deficits) ensures that the debt levels will always rise when there are deficits.
But the rising debt levels do not necessarily have to rise at the same rate as GDP grows. The question is about the debt ratio not the level of debt per se.
Rising deficits often are associated with declining economic activity (especially if there is no evidence of accelerating inflation) which suggests that the debt/GDP ratio may be rising because the denominator is also likely to be falling or rising below trend.
Further, historical experience tells us that when economic growth resumes after a major recession, during which the public debt ratio can rise sharply, the latter always declines again.
It is this endogenous nature of the ratio that suggests it is far more important to focus on the underlying economic problems which the public debt ratio just mirrors.
Mainstream economics starts with the flawed analogy between the household and the sovereign government such that any excess in government spending over taxation receipts has to be "financed" in two ways: (a) by borrowing from the public; and/or (b) by "printing money".
Neither characterisation is remotely representative of what happens in the real world in terms of the operations that define transactions between the government and non-government sector.
Further, the basic analogy is flawed at its most elemental level. The household must work out the financing before it can spend. The household cannot spend first. The government can spend first and ultimately does not have to worry about financing such expenditure.
However, in mainstream (dream) land, the framework for analysing these so-called "financing" choices is called the 'Government Budget Constraint' (GBC). The GBC says that the fiscal deficit in year t is equal to the change in government debt over year t plus the change in high powered money over year t. So in mathematical terms it is written as:
which you can read in English as saying that Fiscal deficit = Government spending + Government interest payments - Tax receipts must equal (be "financed" by) a change in Bonds (B) and/or a change in high powered money (H). The triangle sign (delta) is just shorthand for the change in a variable.
However, this is merely an accounting statement. In a stock-flow consistent macroeconomics, this statement will always hold. That is, it has to be true if all the transactions between the government and non-government sector have been correctly added and subtracted.
So in terms of MMT, the previous equation is just an ex post accounting identity that has to be true by definition and has no real economic importance.
But for the mainstream economist, the equation represents an ex ante (before the fact) financial constraint that the government is bound by. The difference between these two conceptions is very significant and the second (mainstream) interpretation cannot be correct if governments issue fiat currency (unless they place voluntary constraints on themselves and act as if it is a financial constraint).
Further, in mainstream economics, money creation is erroneously depicted as the government asking the central bank to buy treasury bonds which the central bank in return then prints money. The government then spends this money.
This is called debt monetisation and you can find out why this is typically not a viable option for a central bank by reading the Deficits 101 suite - Deficit spending 101 - Part 1 - Deficit spending 101 - Part 2 - Deficit spending 101 - Part 3.
Anyway, the mainstream claims that if governments increase the money growth rate (they erroneously call this "printing money") the extra spending will cause accelerating inflation because there will be "too much money chasing too few goods"! Of-course, we know that proposition to be generally preposterous because economies that are constrained by deficient demand (defined as demand below the full employment level) respond to nominal demand increases by expanding real output rather than prices. There is an extensive literature pointing to this result.
So when governments are expanding deficits to offset a collapse in private spending, there is plenty of spare capacity available to ensure output rather than inflation increases.
But not to be daunted by the "facts", the mainstream claim that because inflation is inevitable if "printing money" occurs, it is unwise to use this option to "finance" net public spending.
Hence they say as a better (but still poor) solution, governments should use debt issuance to "finance" their deficits. Thy also claim this is a poor option because in the short-term it is alleged to increase interest rates and in the longer-term is results in higher future tax rates because the debt has to be "paid back".
Neither proposition bears scrutiny - you can read these blogs - Will we really pay higher taxes? and Will we really pay higher interest rates? - for further discussion on these points.
The mainstream textbooks are full of elaborate models of debt pay-back, debt stabilisation etc which all claim (falsely) to "prove" that the legacy of past deficits is higher debt and to stabilise the debt, the government must eliminate the deficit which means it must then run a primary surplus equal to interest payments on the existing debt.
A primary fiscal balance is the difference between government spending (excluding interest rate servicing) and taxation revenue.
The standard mainstream framework, which even the so-called progressives (deficit-doves) use, focuses on the ratio of debt to GDP rather than the level of debt per se. The following equation captures the approach:
So the change in the debt ratio is the sum of two terms on the right-hand side: (a) the difference between the real interest rate (r) and the GDP growth rate (g) times the initial debt ratio; and (b) the ratio of the primary deficit (G-T) to GDP.
The real interest rate is the difference between the nominal interest rate and the inflation rate.
This standard mainstream framework is used to highlight the dangers of running deficits. But even progressives (not me) use it in a perverse way to justify deficits in a downturn balanced by surpluses in the upturn.
Many mainstream economists and a fair number of so-called progressive economists say that governments should as some point in the business cycle run primary surpluses (taxation revenue in excess of non-interest government spending) to start reducing the debt ratio back to "safe" territory.
Almost all the media commentators that you read on this topic take it for granted that the only way to reduce the public debt ratio is to run primary surpluses. That is what the whole "credible exit strategy" rhetoric is about and what is driving the austerity push around the world at present.
The standard formula above can easily demonstrate that a nation running a primary deficit can reduce its public debt ratio over time. So it is clear that the public debt ratio can fall even if there is an on-going fiscal deficit if the real GDP growth rate is strong enough. This is win-win way to reduce the public debt ratio.
But the question is analysing the situation where the government is desiring to run primary fiscal surpluses.
Consider the following Table which captures the variations possible in the question. In Year 1, the B/Y(-1) = 1 (that is, the public debt ratio at the start of the period is 100 per cent). The (-1) just signals the value inherited in the current period.
We have already assumed that the inflation rate and the nominal interest rate are constant and zero, which means that the real interest rate is also zero and constant. So the r term in the model is 0 throughout our stylised simulation.
This is not to dissimilar to the situation at present in many countries.
In Year 1, there is zero real GDP growth and the Primary Fiscal Balance is also zero. Under these circumstances, the debt ratio is stable.
Now in Year 2, the fiscal austerity program begins and assume for the sake of discussion that it doesn't dent real GDP growth. In reality, a major fiscal contraction is likely to push real GDP growth into the negative (that is, promote a recession). But for the sake of the logic we assume that nominal GDP growth is 1 per cent in Year 2, which means that real GDP growth is also 1 per cent given that all the nominal growth is real (zero inflation).
We assume that the government succeeds in pushing the Primary Fiscal Surplus to 1 per cent of GDP. This is the mainstream nirvana - the public debt ratio falls by 2 per cent as a consequence.
In Year 3, we see that the Primary Budget Surplus remains positive (0.5 per cent of GDP) but is now below the positive real GDP growth rate. In this case the public debt ratio still falls.
In Year 4, real GDP growth contracts (0.5 per cent) and the Primary Fiscal Surplus remains positive (1 per cent of GDP). In this case the public debt ratio still false which makes the proposition in the question false.
So if you have zero real interest rates, then even in a recession, the public debt ratio can still fall and the government run a fiscal surplus as long as Primary Surplus is greater in absolute value to the negative real GDP growth rate. Of-course, this logic is just arithmetic based on the relationship between the flows and stocks involved. In reality, it would be hard for the government to run a primary surplus under these conditions given the automatic stabilisers would be undermining that aim.
In Year 5, the real GDP growth rate is negative 1.5 per cent and the Primary Fiscal Surplus remains positive at 1 per cent of GDP. In this case the public debt ratio rises.
The best way to reduce the public debt ratio is to stop issuing debt. A sovereign government doesn't have to issue debt if the central bank is happy to keep its target interest rate at zero or pay interest on excess reserves.
The discussion also demonstrates why tightening monetary policy makes it harder for the government to reduce the public debt ratio - which, of-course, is one of the more subtle mainstream ways to try to force the government to run surpluses.
The following blog may be of further interest to you: