IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/20821.html

Debt and Taxes. Deferred Obligations and Immediate Demands in Fiscal History

Author

Listed:
  • Esteves, Rui

Abstract

History shows that public debt is a powerful tool for societies to trade with themselves in the future. Debt allows governments to spread the costs of public goods over time, while taxes provide the revenue needed for debt service. History also shows that there are limits to the power of public borrowing. Effective debt management requires balancing borrowing, interest rates, growth and inflation. Failure to do so results in unsustainable debt levels and fiscal crises. However, this essay argues that we need to reevaluate the balance of risks and benefits of sovereign debt. While the stated aim is to understand the past, the essay also speaks to current debates.

Suggested Citation

  • Esteves, Rui, 2025. "Debt and Taxes. Deferred Obligations and Immediate Demands in Fiscal History," CEPR Discussion Papers 20821, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20821
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP20821
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative

    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:cpr:ceprdp:20821. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: CEPR (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cepr.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.