期刊名称：Euro Area Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Statistics
印刷版ISSN：1830-3420
电子版ISSN：1830-3439
出版年度：2012
出版社：European Central Bank
摘要：Against the background of the euro area sovereign debt crisis, our paper investigates the relationship between public debt and economic growth and adds to the existing literature in the following ways. First, we use a dynamic threshold panel methodology in order to analyse the non-linear impact of public debt on GDP growth. Second, we focus on 12 euro area countries for the period 1990- 2010, therefore adding to the current discussion on debt sustainability in the euro area. Our empirical results suggest that the short-run impact of debt on GDP growth is positive and highly statistically signi cant, but decreases to around zero and loses signi cance beyond public debt-to-GDP ratios of around 67%. This result is robust throughout most of our speci cations, in the dynamic and non-dynamic threshold models alike. For high debt-to-GDP ratios (above 95%), additional debt has a negative impact on economic activity. Furthermore, we can show that the long-term interest rate is subject to increased pressure when the public debt-to-GDP ratio is above 70%, broadly supporting the above ndings.
