美国公共债务可持续性影响因素分析

The Sustainability of the US Public Debt

本文通过量化分析的方法,探讨美国公共负债情况的变化及其影响因素,并对美国公共债务的变化趋势做出研判。本文认为,在未来可能出现的低利率和低通货膨胀的情况下,如果能够避免低经济增速和高财政赤字同时出现,那么无需对美国公共债务可持续性过于担忧。如果能够进而保持经济高增速或者低财政赤字,那么美国的公共负债率甚至有可能会下降。如果美国经济陷入长期衰退,同时财政政策又过于宽松从而使财政赤字扩大,那么美国公共债务的可持续性就会受到显著影响,会对全球宏观经济形势造成更大影响。在关注美国近期公共债务高企的同时,还需要对美国的经济增速和财政状况进行综合分析,以便更为准确地把握美国公共债务可持续性趋势。

This paper quantitatively analyzes the US public debt and decomposes it into key influencing factors. Our analysis shows that the public should not be too concerning if the US can avoid the simultaneous emergence of low economic growth rate and high fiscal deficit, given the prospect of a low interest rate and low inflation environment down the road. Furthermore, if the US can achieve high economic growth rate while maintain low fiscal deficit, the public debt ratio might even be able to shrink in the future. However, the worst scenario of continued debt surge is still possible to happen if the US enters into an era of low growth rate and high fiscal deficit simultaneously, which will be a shock also to the world economy. As such, we will need to monitor the US economic growth rate and fiscal condition to fully understand the prospect of the US public debt situation.