IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/the/publsh/4173.html

Sustainable debt

Author

Listed:
  • Bloise, Gaetano

    (Department of Economics, Yeshiva University and University of Rome III)

  • Polemarchakis, Herakles

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick)

  • Vailakis, Yiannis

    (Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow)

Abstract

We show that debt is sustainable at a competitive equilibrium based solely on the reputation for repayment; that is, even without collateral or legal sanctions available to creditors. In an incomplete asset market, when the rate of interest falls recurrently below the rate of growth of the economy, self-insurance is more costly than borrowing, and repayments on loans are enforced by the implicit threat of loss of the risk-sharing advantages of debt contracts. Private debt credibly circulates as a form of inside money, and it is not valued as a speculative bubble. Competitive equilibria with self-enforcing debt exist under a suitable hypothesis of gains from trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Bloise, Gaetano & Polemarchakis, Herakles & Vailakis, Yiannis, 2021. "Sustainable debt," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 16(4), November.
    • Handle: RePEc:the:publsh:4173
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econtheory.org/ojs/index.php/te/article/viewFile/20211513/32393/932
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Hellwig & Guido Lorenzoni, 2009. "Bubbles and Self-Enforcing Debt," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1137-1164, July.
    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. Gaetano Bloise & Yiannis Vailakis, 2022. "On sovereign default with time-varying interest rates," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 44, pages 211-224, April.

    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. Hirano, Tomohiro & Inaba, Masaru & Yanagawa, Noriyuki, 2015. "Asset bubbles and bailouts," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(S), pages 71-89.
    2. Miao, Jianjun & Zhang, Yuzhe, 2015. "A duality approach to continuous-time contracting problems with limited commitment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PB), pages 929-988.
    3. Azariadis, Costas & Kaas, Leo, 2013. "Endogenous credit limits with small default costs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 806-824.
    4. Arellano, Cristina & Heathcote, Jonathan, 2010. "Dollarization and financial integration," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 944-973, May.
    5. Victor Filipe Martins da Rocha & Yiannis Vailakis, 2015. "On the Sovereign Debt Paradox," Working Papers hal-01097118, HAL.
    6. Daniel Neuhann & Michael Sockin, 2019. "Risk-Sharing and Investment in Concentrated Markets," 2019 Meeting Papers 118, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Díaz, Antonia & Perera-Tallo, Fernando, 2011. "Credit and inflation under borrowerʼs lack of commitment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(5), pages 1888-1914, September.
    8. Bloise, Gaetano & Polemarchakis, Herakles & Vailakis, Yiannis, 2017. "Sovereign debt and incentives to default with uninsurable risks," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(3), September.
    9. Hirano, Tomohiro & Toda, Alexis Akira, 2024. "Bubble economics," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    10. Victor Filipe Martins da Rocha & Yiannis Vailakis, 2014. "Self-enforcing Debt, Reputation, and the Role of Interest Rates," Working Papers hal-01097114, HAL.
    11. Martins-da-Rocha, Victor Filipe & Vailakis, Yiannis, 2010. "Competitive equilibria in infinite-horizon collateralized economies with default penalties," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 703, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    12. Xavier Ragot & François Le Grand, 2011. "Default and Credit Constraint in General equilibrium," 2011 Meeting Papers 1165, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Guimaraes, Bernardo & Pannella, Pierluca, 2024. "Short-covering bubbles," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    14. Bidian, Florin, 2015. "Portfolio constraints, differences in beliefs and bubbles," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 317-326.
    15. Bloise, Gaetano & Polemarchakis, Herakles & Vailakis, Yiannis, 2018. "Sustainable Debt," CRETA Online Discussion Paper Series 45, Centre for Research in Economic Theory and its Applications CRETA.
    16. Kang, Kee-Youn, 2019. "Cryptocurrency, Delivery Lag, and Double Spending History," MPRA Paper 93598, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Florin Bidian & Camelia Bejan, 2015. "Martingale properties of self-enforcing debt," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 60(1), pages 35-57, September.
    18. Leo Kaas, 2016. "Public debt and total factor productivity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(2), pages 309-333, February.
    19. V. Filipe Martins-da-Rocha & Yiannis Vailakis, 2017. "On the sovereign debt paradox," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 64(4), pages 825-846, December.
    20. Azariadis, Costas & Kaas, Leo, 2016. "Capital Misallocation And Aggregate Factor Productivity," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 525-543, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D52 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Incomplete Markets
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:the:publsh:4173. 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: Editor Theoretical Economics The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Editor Theoretical Economics to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://econtheory.org .

    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.