A dinâmica da dívida pública: de Domar-Lerner a Tobin-Simonsen

Abstract

Is the public debt's current growth rate sustainable in the long run? This paper argues that, ceteris paribus, the answer will depend on how broadly we define the public debt to be. Since various government liabilities have heterogeneous elective costs, it follows that the pessimism or optimists of the conclusion will vary with the type of debt we deal with. In order to illustrate our point we set up a model based on a comprehensive definition of the public debt. The pioneer contributions of Domar and Lerner, as well as the more recent models by Tobin and Simonsen, were then derived as special cases corresponding to alternative debt specifications. Hence, we can now look at those apparently independent constructions as special cases of a common analitic structure.