Government Deficits and Net Private Saving

The present is a time of deep private indebtedness, especially household indebtedness. A key question for macroeconomic policy is how this debt burden can be alleviated. Until excessive private debt is cleared away, the expenditures of households and firms will be severely constrained, hampering economic recovery. One approach would be to conduct an orderly write down or cancellation of a substantial part of private debt. Another method would involve government making appropriate use of fiscal policy by engaging in substantial and concerted net spending (government spending in excess of tax revenue) to sustain overall demand and income until households and firms can sustainably revive their own levels of spending. A currency-issuing government always has the financial capacity to conduct net spending of this kind. This post focuses on a key positive effect of the second policy approach, but ideally a combination of the two approaches would be employed.

It may not be apparent from perusing newspapers or watching the evening news, but the capacity of households to save and pay off debt is inextricably linked to the government’s use of fiscal policy. Attempts to slash government deficits actually work against the efforts of both households and firms to get debt under control. By directly subtracting from demand, fiscal contraction has a negative impact on output, employment, income, and therefore private saving, frustrating the attempts of households and firms to pay off debt.

The following accounting identity shows an aggregate relationship that must hold by definition for a closed economy, such as the global economy as a whole:

(G – T) = (S – I)

In this identity, G is government expenditure, T is tax revenue, S is private saving and I is gross private investment.

The left-hand side of the identity, G – T, is the fiscal deficit or ‘government balance’. The right-hand side, S – I, is net private saving or the ‘private sector balance’.

Net private saving is the amount by which disposable income (income, Y, minus tax revenue, T) exceeds private spending. This can be seen by noting that S = (Y – T) – C, where C is private consumption expenditure, which in turn implies S – I = (Y – T) – (C + I). When the private sector, in aggregate, spends less than its disposable income, it is said to be in surplus. When it spends more than its income, it is in deficit.

The identity can therefore be restated as:

Fiscal Deficit = Net Private Saving

or, equivalently,

Government Deficit = Private Sector Surplus

This shows that, in a closed economy, the net saving (or financial surplus) of the private sector matches the government’s fiscal deficit, dollar for dollar. A larger fiscal deficit means higher net private saving. A reduction in the fiscal deficit implies lower net private saving.

This relationship makes sense considering that government expenditure involves crediting bank accounts whereas taxing involves debiting bank accounts. If the government spends more and taxes less, there is an increase in bank reserves, held in special accounts with the central bank, and a corresponding increase in bank deposits held by households and firms. Some households and firms may use the extra funds to buy government bonds, which will result in some bank reserves being converted into bonds. Either way, there is an increase in net financial assets (which comprise currency, bank reserves and outstanding government bonds). If, on the contrary, governments try to cut spending and raise taxes, as they are beginning to do in a misguided attempt to run fiscal surpluses, private saving will be squeezed.

For open economies (i.e. individual trading nations), the analysis can be extended to include external sources of revenue and expenditure. There are now three major sectors: the government, domestic-private and external sectors. The accounting identity becomes:

(G – T) = (S – I) – (X – M)

Here, X – M denotes net exports (exports minus imports). In words, we have:

Fiscal Deficit = Net Private Saving – Net Exports

If we rearrange this expression, it becomes clear that there are now two possible sources of net private saving:

Fiscal Deficit + Net Exports = Net Private Saving

If domestic businesses sell more goods and services to foreigners than domestic businesses and households buy from overseas, export revenue will exceed import spending and there will be a build up of private-domestic financial assets. So, in an open economy, private net saving can come either from government deficit expenditure or net exports.

In many countries, though, including the US, net exports are typically negative, which means the external sector subtracts from net private saving. This leaves the fiscal deficit as the only source of net private saving. For trade-deficit countries such as the US, in other words, it is impossible for the private sector to net save unless the government runs a fiscal deficit.

Again, this is not a problem for a currency-issuing government. Public debt creates no financial difficulty for a currency issuer provided its debt is denominated in the currency of issue. It is private debt that can be problematic. Households and businesses can go bankrupt. Currency-issuing governments cannot.

Notwithstanding this elementary principle, governments around the world, including the governments of trade-deficit economies, seem intent on slashing their deficits. This strategy is bound to fail if the aim is to enable sustainable economic recovery. The fact that private households and firms desire to net save, in aggregate, means that private sources of demand are currently weak. By engaging in fiscal contraction at the same time, governments will only succeed in further subtracting from demand, resulting in lower output and employment. With both private and public domestic demand weak, this leaves exports as the only remaining source of demand. However, not all countries can export their way out of trouble. One county’s exports is another’s imports. At the global level, net exports cancel out to zero. Not every country can have a trade surplus.

Despite the limitations of export-based solutions, the current trend towards austerity puts the onus increasingly on export performance. Not only is this approach doomed to fail at a global level, but it is not even likely to help the majority of citizens in individual countries. By giving primacy to export performance, the task is presented as one of reducing wages to improve international competitiveness. But wage reductions in one country can be countered by wage reductions in other countries. The end result is little if any change in each country’s competitiveness but a redistribution of income from wages to profits. This benefits a small minority, but is detrimental to the interests of most.

Even in normal times when the global economy is not in crisis, the accounting identity presented above makes clear that if there is a private-sector desire to net save in a trade-deficit economy, there must, by necessity, be a government deficit. So long as the private sector as a whole desires to spend less than its income, government deficits are the normal requirement, not an aberration. It is a requirement that a currency-issuing government can meet without difficulty.

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