Public Debt and Economic Growth

The aim of this monograph is to present and analyze the relationships between public debt and economic growth in European countries for the period of 1990 to 2013. The monograph consists of two parts. The first part deals with the theoretical analysis of the relationships between public debt and economic growth, including descriptive statistics and the evolution of the two basic variables, the variable of public debt ratio and the variable of growth rates, for eight European countries (Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and UK). The next part deals with the empirical analysis for Greece. During the last decade Greece is facing many economic problems. The economy is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and the debt deepens. In this part we examine whether the debt is promoting economic growth in Greece. We use time series data from 1980 to 2010 and the data are fitted into the regression equation using econometric techniques. We are testing the variables with techniques such as Zivot Andrew's, Perron's and Bai Perron's tests to find any structural breaks. Then we are testing if there is any causal effect in the model with Granger causality test.