PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Sustainability of public debt has become a major issue in the debate over the success of the European Monetary Union. The authors pursue the question of whether Germany's fiscal policy is sustainable. With sustainability of a given fiscal policy, the authors refer to a policy that satisfies the intertemporal budget constaint of the government, known as the no-Ponzi game condition. Although this question has been econometrically studied for the United Stares in many studies, it has not yet been pursued with German time-series data. Using annual data from 1955 to 1994, the results seem to indicate that the intertemporal budget constraint for Germany is not met. In particular; the deficits in the period after 1989 appear to have contributed to that trend. Although the question of whether the latter increase in debt will have a lasting effect is still an important issue, the methodology proposed here may be useful for studying other countries. The authors also briefly discuss the macroeconomic effects of adjustment policies.