The Fiscal and Financial Risks of a High-Debt, Slow-Growth World

March 28, 2024-Higher long-term real interest rates, lower growth, and higher debt will put pressure on medium-term fiscal trends and financial stability
Inflation-adjusted interest rates are well above post global financial crisis lows, while medium-term growth remains weak. Persistently higher interest rates raise the cost of servicing debt, adding to fiscal pressures and posing risks to financial stability.

Decisive and credible fiscal action that gradually brings global debt levels to more sustainable levels can help mitigate these dynamics.

Public debt sustainability

Debt sustainability depends upon four key ingredients: primary balances, real growth, real interest rates, and debt levels. Higher primary balances—the excess of government revenues over expenditures excluding interest payments-and growth help to achieve debt sustainability, whereas higher interest rates and debt levels make it more challenging.

For a long time, debt dynamics remained very benign. That’s because real interest rates were significantly below growth rates. This reduced the pressure for fiscal consolidation and allowed public deficits and public debt to drift upwards. Then, during the pandemic, debt increased even more as governments rolled out large emergency support packages.

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