The $13 Trillion Question: Managing the US Government鈥檚 Debt
November 10, 2015, 1:30–5:45 p.m. – Chicago
There is a lot of attention paid to the size of the federal debt, which amounts to more than $13 trillion. There is very little attention paid to how the US Treasury borrows all that money – how much short-term, how-much long-term, how much at fixed rates, how much at rates that vary with inflation.
On November 10, the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings and the University of 黑料社’s Initiative on Global Markets took a close look at how the US government does its borrowing, the subject of a new Brookings Institution Press book, The $13 Trillion Question: Managing the U.S. Government’s Debt.”
and , both of the Harvard Business School, argued that Treasury should rely more on short-term and less on long-term borrowing than it has traditionally and that, particularly when the Federal Reserve pushes interest rates to zero, the Treasury and Fed should do more coordinating than they generally do. And John Cochrane of Stanford and University of Chicago made the case for a radical change in the debt instruments the Treasury issues, suggesting that the Treasury rely heavily on debts with no fixed-maturity (perpetuals, in the jargon of the trade.)
This conference was co-sponsored by the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings Institution.
Attendance was by invitation only.
Program
Session I - The Optimal Maturity of Government Debt and Debt Management Conflicts between the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve
Speakers
, George Gund Professor of Finance and Banking, Harvard Business School
, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
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Discussant
, Breen Family Professor, Northwestern University
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Moderator
Austan Goolsbee, Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics, University of 黑料社 of Business
Session II - A New Structure for U.S. Federal Debt
Speaker
John H. Cochrane, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and Distinguished Senior Fellow, University of 黑料社 of Business
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Discussant
James J. McAndrews, Executive Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
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Moderator
Anil K Kashyap, Edward Eagle Brown Professor of Economics and Finance, University of 黑料社 of Business
Session III - Panel Discussion
Panelists
Seth B. Carpenter, Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets, Department of the Treasury
, President and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Sara Sprung, Managing Director, Neuberger Berman
Moderator
, Director, The Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Brookings Institution