The Question of Public Debt in Seven Points

The very high level of public debt rates after the Covid crisis has revived the debate on the sustainability of public debt.

For some, it is urgent to return to a more restrictive fiscal policy, to reduce public debt rates, to avoid the divergence of public debt rates that would certainly lead to a financial crisis; for others, in an environment of very low interest rates, it is necessary, on the contrary, for the State to take on more debt in order to finance necessary public spending. Policy makers are confronted with this divergence of views among economists, which obviously makes their task difficult. We will try here to reflect on this question of public debt by organizing the reflection into seven points, and by illustrating the analysis with data for the euro zone.