A SurpluS of Ambition: Can EUROPE Rely on Large Primary Surpluses to Solve its DEBT PROBLEM?

A SURPLUS OF AMBITION:
CAN EUROPE RELY ON LARGE PRIMARY SURPLUSES TO SOLVE ITS DEBT PROBLEM?

Introduction
Europe’s problem economies have heavy debts and gloomy growth prospects. This fact raises obvious concerns about the sustainability of public debts, concerns that have manifested themselves periodically in increases in yields that investors demand to hold governments’ debt securities. As we write, investors are relatively sanguine. The question is whether they will remain so. It is whether and when worries about debt sustainability will be back.

The IMF, in its Fiscal Monitor (2013), sketches a scenario in which the obligations of heavily indebted European sovereigns first stabilize and then fall to the 60 percent level targeted by the EU’s Fiscal Compact by 2030. It makes assumptions regarding interest rates, growth rates and related variables and computes the cyclically adjusted primary budget surplus (the surplus exclusive of interest payments) consistent with this scenario. The heavier the debt, the higher the interest rate and the slower the growth rate, the larger is the requisite surplus. The average primary surplus in the decade 2020-2030 is calculated as 5.6 percent for Ireland, 6.6 percent for Italy, 5.9 percent for Portugal, 4.0 percent for Spain, and (wait for it…) 7.2 percent for Greece.1

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