Another extract from my book-in-progress, Economic Consequences of the Pandemic

Over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, governments around the world have issued huge amounts of public debt, much of which has been purchased by central banks. In the US, for example, Federal public debt increased by $3 trillion over the course of 2020 (this is about 15 per cent of US national income)

while the monetary base (money created directly by the Federal Reserve) increased by around $1.6 trillion. This money was used to buy government bonds along with corporate securities in open market operations (what is now called Quantitative Easing)

Update Important but complicated: the Treasury has been overfunding its spending needs by issuing securities, and then depositing the excess proceeds at the Fed. To accommodate this, the Fed has increased its secondary market purchases of Treasurys. Netting out the Treasury account, the Fed’s balance sheet is $5.6 trillion rather than $7.2 trillion. Moreover, the post-COVID balance sheet expansion was $1.7 trillion, not $3.0 trillion. (moneyandbanking.com/commentary/202…) Presumably, the latest stimulus package ($900 billion) will draw down much of the Treasury account. If I have it right, this has been accommodated in advance by Fed purchases. End update

These policies represent a complete repudiation of assumptions which were considered unquestionable by the political class until relatively recently: that budgets should be balanced, and that public debt is always undesirable.

Even the most widely-accepted modifications of these assumptions are now problematic. A standard view is that budget balances should be stable over the course of the economic cycle. If measured appropriately, this entails a stable ratio of public debt to national income.

But where should this ratio be set?

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