01/29/2015 - Financial Repression: The Liquidation of Government Debt New IMF Paper by Reinhart & Sbrancia
New IMF paper by Carmen Reinhart & M. Belen Sbrancia .. presents how public debt is often reduced through the use of financial repression – a tax on bondholders & savers via negative or below market real interest rates .. from abstract:High public debt often produces the drama of default and restructuring. But debt is also reduced through financial repression, a tax on bondholders and savers via negative or below-market real interest rates. After WWII, capital controls and regulatory restrictions created a captive audience for government debt .. Financial repression is most successful in liquidating debt when accompanied by inflation. For the advanced economies, real interest rates were ne gative ½ of the time during 1945–1980. Average annual interest expense savings for a 12—country sample range from about 1 to 5% of GDP for the full 1945–1980 period. We suggest that, once again, financial repression may be part of the toolkit deployed to cope with the most recent surge in public debt in advanced economies.”
