Debt Management and the Fiscal Balance

In this policy note, Jan Toporowski provides an analysis of government debt management using fiscal principles derived from the work of Michal Kalecki. Dividing the government's budget into a "functional" and "financial" budget, Toporowski demonstrates how a financial budget balance--servicing government debt from taxes on wealth and profits that do not affect incomes and expenditures in the economy--allows a government to manage its debts without compromising the macroeconomic goals set in the functional budget. By splitting the budget into a functional budget that affects the real economy and a financial budget that just maintains debt payments and the liquidity of the financial system, the government can have two independent instruments that can be used to target, respectively, the macroeconomy and government debt-overcoming a dilemma that makes fiscal policy ineffective. This analysis also explains how pursuit of supply-side policies that result in a financial budget deficit and functional budget surplus can lead to slow growth, rising government debt, and financial instability.