Econlib Resources
Liberty Fund Resources
FEATURED TOPIC
Government Debt and Deficits
John J. Seater
Government debt is the stock of outstanding IOUs issued by the government at any time in the past and not yet repaid. Governments issue debt whenever they borrow from the public; the magnitude of the outstanding debt equals the cumulative amount of net borrowing that the government has done. The deficit is the addition in the current period (year, quarter, month, etc.) to the outstanding debt. The deficit is negative whenever the value of outstanding debt falls; a negative deficit is called a surplus....
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ALSO OF INTEREST
Financial Regulation
Bert ElyUnemployment
Lawrence H. SummersFiscal Sustainability
Laurence J. KotlikoffRational Expectations
Thomas J. SargentGreat Depression
Gene SmileyFEATURED BIOGRAPHY
Eugen Böhm-Bawerk
((1851-1914)
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk was one of the leading members of the Austrian school of economics--an approach to economic thought founded by Carl Menger and augmented by Knut Wicksell, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich A. Hayek, and Sir John Hicks. Böhm-Bawerk's work became so well known that before World War I, his Marxist contemporaries regarded the Austrians as their typical bourgeois, intellectual enemies. His theories of interest and capital were catalysts in the development of economics, but today his original work receives little attention....
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The cuneiform inscription in the Liberty Fund logo is the earliest-known written appearance of the word "freedom" (amagi), or "liberty." It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.