Some Unpleasant Fiscal Arithmetic': The Role Of Monetary And Fiscal Policy In Public Debt Dynamics Since The 1970s

Shocks to monetary and fiscal policy have played a major role in public debt developments in the OECD countries since the mid-1970s. According to the applied VAR approach, these shocks, taken together, explained, on average, about half of the forecast error variation in the debt to GDP ratio, while the share of shocks to GDP growth was close to 30 percent. In contrast, shocks to inflation and the debt ratio itself played in most cases only a minor role. However, the inflation shocks were vital in initiating the public debt problems, as the increase in actual inflation, and particularly the persistence of high inflation expectations in the 1980s, led to a prolonged period of high real interest rates.