Barry Eichengreen: In Defense of Public Debt

<p>Much has been said and written about the dangers of government borrowing. In their new book, <em><a href= "https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/biblio/defense-public-debt">In Defense of Public Debt,</a></em> economic historian Barry Eichengreen and his co-authors trace the evolution of sovereign debt from the wars of medieval Europe through the Covid-19 crisis, illustrating public debt's many positive uses, from reacting to financial crises to building public works. In this podcast, Eichengreen discusses the book with Finance and Development Magazine’s Chris Wellisz. <a href= "http://traffic.libsyn.com/imfpodcast/Barry_Eichengreen-transcript-IMF_Podcast.pdf"> Transcript</a>: https://bit.ly/3ec6Hvj</p> <p> </p>