Sustainability of High Public Debt: What the Historical Record Shows

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Sustainability of High Public Debt: What the Historical Record Shows

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Ritschl, Albrecht

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Albrecht Ritschl

Abstract

Proposals for reducing high public debt are sometimes viewed with scepticism, both because of adverse consequences for growth and political economy considerations. This paper looks into the debt history of Britain, Germany and France, to gain more insights into why national debt was accumulated and how it was reduced. The historical evidence studied here leaves only a limited role for public choice interpretations, as most of the historical debt record was dominated by international conflict. Whichever strategy towards reducing the debt burden was adopted, there seem to be no visible effects on long-term growth performance.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 1357.

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Date of creation: Feb 1996
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:1357

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
H6 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt
N1 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Growth and Fluctuations
N4 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, and Regulation

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This page was last updated on 2009-11-25.

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