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…
