Debt as safe asset: mining the bubble - Markus Brunnermeier

Finance

Speaker : Markus Brunnermeier (Princeton University)

Videoconference

How much government debt can the market absorb? At what interest rate? Is there a limit, a “Debt Laffer Curve”? What is the impact on inflation? When can governments run a permanent (primary) deficit without ever paying back its debt, like a Ponzi scheme, and nevertheless individual citizens’ transversality conditions hold? What is a safe asset? What are its features? Why is government debt a safe asset? When does one lose the safe asset status? How do we have to modify representative agent asset pricing and the FTPL?