IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedbne/y1990isepp34-54.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The United States in debt

Author

Listed:
  • Norman S. Fieleke

Abstract

After 1982 the international investment position of the United States dramatically shifted from one of sizable net creditor to much more sizable net debtor. As the U.S. deficit on current international transactions soared to record levels during the mid-1980s, some observers perceived a grave loss of U.S. competitiveness that was \"deindustrializing\" America. Others warned of an imminent international financial crisis. ; This article examines the growth of U.S. indebtedness to the rest of the world and its underlying causes, and considers the consequences and some proposed remedies. The author perceives no deindustrialization of America, nor does he foresee a crisis for the nation on its foreign indebtedness. Nevertheless, the indebtedness imposes a new burden on the U.S. economy, as the trade deficit must diminish if the nation is to fund increasing net interest payments to its creditors. The adjustment will not be painless for the United States, which will be obliged to consume less than it otherwise would.

Suggested Citation

  • Norman S. Fieleke, 1990. "The United States in debt," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Sep, pages 34-54.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbne:y:1990:i:sep:p:34-54
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/neer/neer1990/neer590c.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Feldstein, Martin & Elmendorf, Douglas W, 1990. "Government Debt, Government Spending, and Private Sector Behavior Revisited: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 589-599, June.
    2. John F. Helliwell, 1990. "Fiscal Policy and the External Deficit: Siblings, but not Twins," NBER Working Papers 3313, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Modigliani, Franco & Sterling, Arlie G, 1990. "Government Debt, Government Spending, and Private Sector Behavior: A Further Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 600-603, June.
    4. Jeffrey H. Bergstrand, 1986. "United States-Japanese trade: predictions using selected economic models," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue May, pages 26-37.
    5. Kormendi, Roger C & Meguire, Philip, 1990. "Government Debt, Government Spending, and Private Sector Behavior: Reply and Update," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 604-617, June.
    6. Houthakker, Hendrik S & Magee, Stephen P, 1969. "Income and Price Elasticities in World Trade," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 51(2), pages 111-125, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bernard Saffran, 1991. "Recommendations for Further Reading," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 209-214, Spring.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elmendorf, Douglas W. & Gregory Mankiw, N., 1999. "Government debt," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1615-1669, Elsevier.
    2. Basil Dalamagas, 1994. "Testing the Debt-Illusion Hypothesis," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 45(4), pages 1079-1094.
    3. Gianluigi Giorgioni & Ken Holden, 2003. "Ricardian equivalence, expansionary fiscal contraction and the stock market: a VECM approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(12), pages 1435-1443.
    4. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption : Saving decisions : Testing the finite horizon model," Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    5. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1997_006 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Koumparoulis, Dimitrios, 2006. "Ευρωπαϊκή Δημοσιονομική Πολιτική Και Οικονομική Μεγέθυνση: Η Νεοκλασική Οικονομική Θεωρία Για Την Περίπτωση Της Ελλάδας [European Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth: The Neoclassical Economic Theory," MPRA Paper 44310, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Krishanu Pradhan, 2016. "Ricardian Approach to Fiscal Sustainability in India," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 10(4), pages 499-529, November.
    8. Waqas, Muhamad & Awan, Masood Sarwar & Aslam, Muhammad Amir, 2011. "We are living on the cost of our children," MPRA Paper 32044, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Muhammad Afzal, 2012. "Ricardian equivalence hypothesis: Evidence from Pakistan," E3 Journal of Business Management and Economics., E3 Journals, vol. 3(6), pages 258-265.
    10. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption: Saving decisions: Testing the finite horizon model," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    11. Michael R. Darby & Robert Gillingham & John S. Greenlees, 1991. "The Impact Of Government Deficits On Personal And National Saving Rates," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 9(4), pages 39-55, October.
    12. Cho , Dooyeon & Rhee , Dong-Eun, 2013. "Nonlinear Effects of Government Debt on Private Consumption in OECD Countries," Working Papers 13-5, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.
    13. Bradley, John & Whelan, Karl, 1997. "The Irish expansionary fiscal contraction: A tale from one small European economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 175-201, April.
    14. Hrushikesh Mallick, 2008. "Do remittances impact the economy? Some empirical evidences from a developing economy," Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum Working Papers 407, Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum, India.
    15. Joe Stone & Jo Anna Gray, 2006. "Ricardian equivalence for sub-national states," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 5(1), pages 1-12.
    16. Aqdas Ali Kazmi, 1994. "Private Consumption, Government Spending, Debt Neutrality: Resolving Kormendi- Feldstein-Modigliani Controversy," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 1055-1071.
    17. Kandil, Magda, 2001. "Asymmetry in the effects of us government spending shocks: evidence and implications," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 137-165.
    18. António Afonso, 2001. "Non-Keynesian Effects of Fiscal Policy in the EU-15," Working Papers Department of Economics 2001/07, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    19. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:5:y:2006:i:1:p:1-12 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Waqas, Muhammad & Awan, Masood Sarwar, 2011. "Are Pakistani Consumers Ricardian?," MPRA Paper 35375, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Martin, Philippe & Pesenti, Paolo, 2007. "Productivity, terms of trade and the `home market effect'," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 99-127, September.
    22. Mohsen Bahmani-Oskooee & Taggert Brooks, 2003. "A new criteria for selecting the optimum lags in Johansen's cointegration technique," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(8), pages 875-880.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedbne:y:1990:i:sep:p:34-54. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Spozio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbbous.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.