IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2507.18092.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rethinking Indonesia's Public Debt in the Era of Negative Interest Rate-Growth Differentials

Author

Listed:
  • Mervin Goklas Hamonangan

Abstract

This study contributes to the discussion about how higher public debt may not be costly because of the negative interest rate-growth differentials by simulating OLG models introduced by Blanchard (2019) under uncertainty, showing debt and welfare dynamics in two scenarios: intergenerational transfers and debt rollovers in the case of Indonesia. The simulation is done by modifying the model parameters based on interest rate-growth differentials historic data from 2004-2019. It is found that the fiscal consensus does not hold when implementing Blanchard (2019) analysis with Indonesian-based rate parameters. Increasing public debt makes the economy more volatile and high risk. Modifying other factors supports the initial finding, with lower initial endowment diminishing the benefits of public debt and higher capital share under Cobb-Douglas. When the threat of debt explosion appears, efforts to reduce debt share will reduce the welfare of the society. The policy implication is to be careful of the opportunity. Increasing public debt may not be the way to go, avoiding possible dire consequences.

Suggested Citation

  • Mervin Goklas Hamonangan, 2025. "Rethinking Indonesia's Public Debt in the Era of Negative Interest Rate-Growth Differentials," Papers 2507.18092, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2507.18092
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.18092
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Blanchard, 2019. "Public Debt and Low Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1197-1229, April.
    2. Olivier J Blanchard & Josh Felman & Arvind Subramanian, 2021. "Does the new fiscal consensus in advanced economies travel to emerging markets?," Policy Briefs PB21-7, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    3. Olivier Blanchard & Gita Gopinath & Kenneth Rogoff, 2021. "Discussion on Public Debt and Fiscal Policy," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 69(1), pages 258-274, March.
    4. Olivier J Blanchard, 2019. "Public Debt: Fiscal and Welfare Costs in a Time of Low Interest Rates," Policy Briefs PB19-2, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Adam S. Posen, 2021. "Fiscal Success During COVID-19 Says Believe the Good News," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 56(4), pages 190-193, July.
    2. Havemann, Roy & Hollander, Hylton, 2024. "Fiscal policy in times of fiscal stress (or what to do when r > g)," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 46(5), pages 1020-1054.
    3. Pompeo Della Posta & Enrico Marelli & Marcello Signorelli, 2022. "COVID-19, Economic Policies and Public Debt Sustainability in Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-20, April.
    4. Ashima Goyal, 2021. "Using the snowball effect in Indian post Covid-19 paths to fiscal consolidation," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2021-016, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    5. National Bank of Poland, 2022. "Macroeconomic policy response to the Covid-19 shock," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), The monetary-fiscal policy nexus in the wake of the pandemic, volume 122, pages 241-250, Bank for International Settlements.
    6. Peppel-Srebrny, Jemima, 2021. "Not all government budget deficits are created equal: Evidence from advanced economies' sovereign bond markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    7. Johannes Blum & Klaus Gründler & Raphael de Britto Schiller & Niklas Potrafke, 2019. "Die Schuldenbremse in der Diskussion – Teilnehmer des Ökonomenpanels mehrheitlich für Beibehaltung," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 72(22), pages 27-33, November.
    8. Schuster, Florian & Krahé, Max & Schneemelcher, Pola & Sigl-Glöckner, Philippa, 2022. "Do the MTO's cyclically adjusted budget balances serve their purpose? An analysis and a reform proposal," Papers 277894, Dezernat Zukunft - Institute for Macrofinance, Berlin.
    9. Alexander Beames & Mariano Kulish & Nadine Yamout, 2022. "Fiscal Policy and the Slowdown in Trend Growth in an Open Economy," Working Papers 143, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    10. Christian Breuer, 2020. "Goverment Debt Post COVID-19: Back To Golden Rules," Chemnitz Economic Papers 041, Department of Economics, Chemnitz University of Technology, revised Feb 2020.
    11. Javier Andres & Oscar Arce & Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Samuel Hurtado, 2022. "Deciphering the Macroeconomic Effects of Internal Devaluations in a Monetary Union," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 18(5), pages 1-47, December.
    12. Ludger Schuknecht, 2019. "Fiscal-Financial Vulnerabilities," CESifo Working Paper Series 7776, CESifo.
    13. Daisuke Miyashita, 2023. "Public debt and income inequality in an endogenous growth model with elastic labor supply," International Journal of Economic Policy Studies, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 447-472, August.
    14. Joshua Aizenman & Hiro Ito, 2023. "Post COVID‐19 exit strategies and emerging markets economic challenges," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 1-34, February.
    15. Schuster, Florian & Krahé, Max & Sigl-Glöckner, Philippa, 2021. "Wird die Konjunkturkomponente der Schuldenbremse in ihrer heutigen Ausgestaltung ihrer Aufgabe noch gerecht? Analyse und ein Reformvorschlag," Papers 277885, Dezernat Zukunft - Institute for Macrofinance, Berlin.
    16. John Cochrane, 2022. "The fiscal root of inflation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 22-40, July.
    17. Laurence Kotlikoff & Felix Kubler & Andrey Polbin & Simon Scheidegger, 2021. "Pareto-improving carbon-risk taxation [The environment and directed technical change]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 36(107), pages 551-589.
    18. Karl Whelan, 2021. "Central banks and inflation: where do we stand and how did we get here?," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 18(3), pages 310–330-3, December.
    19. Dammann, Felix & Rodosthenous, Neofytos & Villeneuve, Stéphane, 2025. "A Stochastic Non-Zero-Sum Game of Controlling the Debt-to-GDP Ratio," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 730, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    20. Robert Kraemer & Jonne Lehtimäki, 2024. "Government debt, European Institutions and fiscal rules: a synthetic control approach," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 31(4), pages 1112-1157, August.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2507.18092. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.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.