Policy Briefs

P. C. Padoan: Public Debt Reduction in Uncertain Times – With a View to Europe

We live in uncertain times both economically - growth remains weak, especially in the fundamentals - and in the policy response and from the point of view of governance, both nationally and globally.

Public debt remains a source of fragility for many countries. Private debt also, in some countries. Putting debt/GDP over a declining path remains imperative to reduce fragility.

While this topic has been subject to scrutiny for quite a long time, I will consider some additional longer-term determinants of debt dynamics that have gained relevance recently and relate them to broad uncertainty.

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