Public Debt Sustainability

This book examines the issue of debt sustainability from an international perspective, with reference to European countries, emerging nations, and the United States.

As countries recover from the coronavirus pandemic, they are confronted with an even more challenging debt crisis. Xavier Debrun argues in the foreword that in deciding where we go from here that there is no longer a consensus regarding the optimum design and enforcement of fiscal rules. Rather we must address a series of questions and challenges to the conventional wisdom. This book provides an opportunity for scholars to explore these questions from an international perspective, with reference to European countries, and emerging nations as well as the United States.

Chapter 1: Organizing Congress for Budget Reforms by Kurt COUCHMAN

Chapter 2: Debt Fatigue and the Climacteric in U.S. Economic Growth by John MERRIFIELD and Barry POULSON

Chapter 3: Preparing for the Next Crisis: Lessons from the Successful Swedish Fiscal Framework by Lars JONUNG and Fredrik NG ANDERSSON

Chapter 4: The Swiss Federal Debt Brake and its Unbudgeted Surpluses by Vera Z. Eichenauer and Jan-Egbert Sturm

Chapter 5: The German Debt Brake: Success Factors and Challenges by Lars P. Feld and Wolf H. Reuter

Chapter 6: A Money Doctor’s Reflections on Currency Reforms and Hard Budget Constraints: A Stroll Down Memory Lane by Steve H. Hanke

Chapter 7: Fiscal Rules and Public Debt: An Emerging Market Perspective by Pablo Guidotti

Chapter 8: Populist Economic Thought: the Legacy of Juan Domingo Perón by Carlos Newland and Emilio OCampo

Chapter 9: Monetary Policy and the Worsening U.S. Debt Crisis by Norbert J. Michel

Chapter 10: The Federal Reserve and the Debt Crisis by Tom Saving

Chapter 11: The High Costs of Fiscal and Monetary Anomie: Argentina since 1945 by Emilio OCampo

Chapter 12: The Failure to Establish Effective Rules for Financing U.S. Federal Entitlement Programs by Charles Blahous

Chapter 13: Fiscal Rules for Social Security and Medicare: Would Accrual Accounting Help? By James C. Capretta