Recently, newspaper headlines declared that Greece would have a balanced budget for this year as a whole. The news came as quite a shock: Recall that when Greek officials came clean about the true state of their country’s public finances in 2010, the budget deficit was more than 10 percent of GDP — a moment of statistical honesty that triggered the eurozone debt crisis. It seemed too good to be true that the Greek deficit would be completely eliminated in just three years.
In fact, it is too good to be true. Any reader who went beyond the headlines soon discovered that the prediction of a zero budget deficit was in fact misleading. The IMF was predicting only that Greece would have a zero “primary” budget deficit this year.A “primary” budget deficit (or surplus) is the difference between a government’s outlays for everything excluding the interest payments that it must pay on its debt, and its receipts from taxes and other charges. In the case of Greece, the interest payments apply to government debt held by Greek individuals and institutions, as well as to government debt held by the IMF, the European Central Bank and other foreign lenders.
MISLEADING PREDICTION
The overall budget deficit is still predicted to be 4.1 percent of Greece’s GDP this year — a substantial improvement compared with 2010, but still far from fiscal balance. The difference between the overall deficit and the primary deficit implies that the interest on the Greek national debt this year will be 4.1 percent of GDP.
Moreover, the Greek government’s interest payments are exceptionally low. Given that its debt will still be about 170 percent of GDP this year, the 4.1 percent-of-GDP interest bill implies that the Greek government pays an average interest rate of just 2.4 percent — far less than the nearly 9 percent rate that the market is now charging on 10-year Greek government bonds.
The difference reflects a combination of the lower rate on short-term debt and the highly favorable terms on which Greece is now able to borrow from official lenders at the IMF and the European Central Bank. If Greece had to borrow at the market interest rate on 10-year bonds, its deficit would rise by 6.5 percent of the Greek government debt or 11 percent of GDP. In this case, the overall Greek deficit would be about 15 percent of GDP, putting its debt on a rapidly exploding path.
Greece’s economic weakness increases the level of the deficit. Five years of declining GDP have depressed tax receipts and increased transfer payments. The IMF estimates that these cyclical effects on revenue and outlays have raised the overall deficit by nearly 5 percent of Greek GDP. On a cyclically adjusted basis, Greece’s overall budget would show a surplus of 0.6 percent of GDP this year.
RISING SURPLUS
This also implies that if Greece could escape from its recession, its national debt would decline, both absolutely and as a share of GDP. More generally, the national debt of any country grows by the size of its budget deficit or declines by the size of its budget surplus.
Even an economy with an overall budget deficit will have a declining government debt/GDP ratio if the growth rate of its nominal GDP exceeds that of its debt. For Greece, with an overall deficit of 4.1 percent of GDP and a debt/GDP ratio of 170 percent, the debt ratio would fall if the combination of inflation and real (inflation-adjusted) GDP growth exceeded 2.4 percent. Stated differently, now that Greece has achieved a zero primary budget deficit, its debt burden will decline if its nominal growth rate exceeds the average interest that it pays on its government debt.
Budget deficits and the resulting national debt are important not only in themselves; they also contribute to a country’s current-account deficit, which is the difference between its level of domestic investment by businesses and households in structures and equipment, and the amount that it saves to finance those investments. That amount, which includes the saving of businesses and households, is reduced by the amount that the government borrows.
A REMAINING DEFICIT
In the case of Greece, the saving of businesses and households exceeds the level of investment in businesses and housing by just enough to outweigh the dissaving by the government, resulting in a very small current-account surplus. Stated differently, Greece is now able to finance its level of consumption and investment, including government and private spending, without relying on capital inflows from the rest of the world.
Looking ahead, the IMF predicts that Greece will have a gradually rising primary surplus and a gradually declining overall deficit over the next several years. However, unless Greece is able to increase its rate of economic growth, the budget will remain in deficit and the debt will remain at nearly its current share of GDP.
Martin Feldstein is a professor of economics at Harvard University and president emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He chaired former US president Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1982 to 1984.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
A gap appears to be emerging between Washington’s foreign policy elites and the broader American public on how the United States should respond to China’s rise. From my vantage working at a think tank in Washington, DC, and through regular travel around the United States, I increasingly experience two distinct discussions. This divergence — between America’s elite hawkishness and public caution — may become one of the least appreciated and most consequential external factors influencing Taiwan’s security environment in the years ahead. Within the American policy community, the dominant view of China has grown unmistakably tough. Many members of Congress, as
After declaring Iran’s military “gone,” US President Donald Trump appealed to the UK, France, Japan and South Korea — as well as China, Iran’s strategic partner — to send minesweepers and naval forces to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. When allies balked, the request turned into a warning: NATO would face “a very bad” future if it refused. The prevailing wisdom is that Trump faces a credibility problem: having spent years insulting allies, he finds they would not rally when he needs them. That is true, but superficial, as though a structural collapse could be caused by wounded feelings. Something
Former Taipei mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) founding chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was sentenced to 17 years in prison on Thursday, making headlines across major media. However, another case linked to the TPP — the indictment of Chinese immigrant Xu Chunying (徐春鶯) for alleged violations of the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法) on Tuesday — has also stirred up heated discussions. Born in Shanghai, Xu became a resident of Taiwan through marriage in 1993. Currently the director of the Taiwan New Immigrant Development Association, she was elected to serve as legislator-at-large for the TPP in 2023, but was later charged with involvement
Out of 64 participating universities in this year’s Stars Program — through which schools directly recommend their top students to universities for admission — only 19 filled their admissions quotas. There were 922 vacancies, down more than 200 from last year; top universities had 37 unfilled places, 40 fewer than last year. The original purpose of the Stars Program was to expand admissions to a wider range of students. However, certain departments at elite universities that failed to meet their admissions quotas are not improving. Vacancies at top universities are linked to students’ program preferences on their applications, but inappropriate admission
RSS