Running Primary Deficits Forever in a Dynamically Efficient Economy: Feasibility and Optimality
Andrew B. Abel, Stavros Panageas
Econometrica · 2025 · Volume 93 · Issue 5
Abstract
Government debt can be rolled over forever without primary surpluses in some stochastic economies, including some economies that are dynamically efficient. In an overlapping-generations model with constant growth rate,g, of labor-augmenting productivity, and with shocks to the durability of capital, we show that along a balanced growth path, the maximum sustainable ratio of bonds to capital is attained when the risk-free interest rate,rf, equalsg. Furthermore, this maximal ratio maximizes utility per capita along a balanced growth path and ensures that the economy is dynamically efficient.
Keywords
Government debt, overlapping generations
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