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The unexplained part of public debt
How do countries get into debt? And how does this debt rise so fast? The short answer may be obvious, but this column shows that the longer answer certainly isn’t. The answer to the question “How do countries get into debt?” seems trivial. The stock of debt is equal to the sum of past budget deficits. Countries accumulate debt whenever they run a budget deficit and reduce their debt when they run a budget surplus. In fact, the standard Economics 101 textbook debt accumulation equation states that the change in the stock of debt is equal to the budget deficit (for those who like equations this can be expressed ... (full story)