IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/34018.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Revisiting the Interest Rate Effects of Federal Debt

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Plante
  • Alexander W. Richter
  • Sarah Zubairy

Abstract

This paper revisits the relationship between federal debt and interest rates, which is a key input for assessments of fiscal sustainability. Estimating this relationship is challenging due to confounding effects from business cycle dynamics and changes in monetary policy. A common approach is to regress long-term forward interest rates on long-term projections of federal debt. We show that issues regarding nonstationarity have become far more pronounced over the last 20 years, significantly biasing the recent estimates based on this methodology. Estimating the model in first differences addresses these concerns. We find that a 1 percentage point increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio raises the 5-year-ahead, 5-year Treasury rate by about 3 basis points, which is statistically and economically significant and highly robust. Roughly three-quarters of the increase in interest rates reflects term premia rather than expected short-term real rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Plante & Alexander W. Richter & Sarah Zubairy, 2025. "Revisiting the Interest Rate Effects of Federal Debt," NBER Working Papers 34018, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34018
    Note: ME PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w34018.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Laubach, 2009. "New Evidence on the Interest Rate Effects of Budget Deficits and Debt," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(4), pages 858-885, June.
    2. D’Amico, Stefania & Kim, Don H. & Wei, Min, 2018. "Tips from TIPS: The Informational Content of Treasury Inflation-Protected Security Prices," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 395-436, February.
    3. Maxime Phillot, 2025. "US Treasury Auctions: A High-Frequency Identification of Supply Shocks," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 245-273, January.
    4. Phillips, Peter C B & Ouliaris, S, 1990. "Asymptotic Properties of Residual Based Tests for Cointegration," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 165-193, January.
    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. William Dudley & Michelle Steinberg Ezer & Jennifer E. Roush, 2009. "The case for TIPS: an examination of the costs and benefits," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 15(Jul), pages 1-17.
    2. Lukasz Rachel & Lawrence H. Summers, 2019. "On Secular Stagnation in the Industrialized World," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 50(1 (Spring), pages 1-76.
    3. Billio, M. & Busetto, F. & Dufour, A. & Varotto, S., 2025. "Bond supply expectations and the term structure of interest rates," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    4. Andras Lengyel, 2022. "Treasury Supply Shocks and the Term Structure of Interest Rates in the UK," MNB Working Papers 2022/6, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary).
    5. Matteo Mogliani, 2010. "Residual-based tests for cointegration and multiple deterministic structural breaks: A Monte Carlo study," Working Papers halshs-00564897, HAL.
    6. Douglas Sutherland & Peter Hoeller & Balázs Égert & Oliver Röhn, 2010. "Counter-cyclical Economic Policy," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 760, OECD Publishing.
    7. Jorg Bibow, 2004. "Fiscal Consolidation: Contrasting Strategies & Lessons From International Experiences," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_400, Levy Economics Institute.
    8. Afonso, António, 2007. "An avenue for expansionary fiscal contractions," MPRA Paper 4593, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Francesca Iorio & Stefano Fachin, 2014. "Savings and investments in the OECD: a panel cointegration study with a new bootstrap test," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 1271-1300, June.
    10. van Amano, Robert A & Norden, Simon, 1998. "Exchange Rates and Oil Prices," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(4), pages 683-694, November.
    11. Liu, Yaping & Sadiq, Farah & Ali, Wajahat & Kumail, Tafazal, 2022. "Does tourism development, energy consumption, trade openness and economic growth matters for ecological footprint: Testing the Environmental Kuznets Curve and pollution haven hypothesis for Pakistan," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    12. Chi-Wei Su, 2012. "The relationship between exchange rate and macroeconomic variables in China," Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci/Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business, vol. 30(1), pages 33-56.
    13. Paul J.J. Welfens, 2011. "The Twin Crisis: From the Transatlantic Banking Crisis to the Euro Crisis?," EIIW Discussion paper disbei187, Universitätsbibliothek Wuppertal, University Library.
    14. Röhrs, Sigrid & Winter, Christoph, 2017. "Reducing government debt in the presence of inequality," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-20.
    15. Valérie Mignon & Christophe Hurlin, 2007. "Une synthèse des tests de cointégration sur données de panel," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 180(4), pages 241-265.
    16. Ireland, Peter N., 1999. "Does the time-consistency problem explain the behavior of inflation in the United States?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 279-291, October.
    17. Philippe Andrade & Catherine Bruneau, 2002. "Excess returns, portfolio choices and exchange rate dynamics. The yen/dollar case, 1980–1998," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 64(3), pages 233-256, July.
    18. Muhammad Farooq Arby & Muhammad Nadeem Hanif, 2010. "Monetary and Fiscal Policies Coordination: Pakistan’s Experience," SBP Research Bulletin, State Bank of Pakistan, Research Department, vol. 6, pages 3-13.
    19. Gabriel, Vasco J. & Psaradakis, Zacharias & Sola, Martin, 2002. "A simple method of testing for cointegration subject to multiple regime changes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 213-221, July.
    20. Orphanides, Athanasios & Wei, Min, 2012. "Evolving macroeconomic perceptions and the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 239-254.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

    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:nbr:nberwo:34018. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.