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
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) were born under the sign of Gemini. Geminis are known for their intelligence, creativity, adaptability and flexibility. It is unlikely, then, that the trade conflict between the US and China would escalate into a catastrophic collision. It is more probable that both sides would seek a way to de-escalate, paving the way for a Trump-Xi summit that allows the global economy some breathing room. Practically speaking, China and the US have vulnerabilities, and a prolonged trade war would be damaging for both. In the US, the electoral system means that public opinion
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
RSS