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Velichka Nikolova
The Impact of Interest Rate Changes on Bulgaria’s Government Debt for the Period 2003-2018
Summary:
This article emphasizes on the impact of interest rate changes on government debt. For this purpose, theoretical and empirical studies are initially systematized with the main focus being placed on the change of government debt in terms of continuously decreasing interest rates. The main trends in the change of government debt, interest payments, the real GDP growth rates and the interest rates for long-term government bonds in Bulgaria are also analyzed. The econometric analysis of the relationship between interest rates and government debt is applied including tests for long and short run causal relationship among variables. When comparing the results obtained for the degree of impact of interest rates and economic growth on debt, it is concluded that interest rates have a statistically significant but weak effect on government debt. There is much stronger (positive and statistically significant) effect of economic growth on debt, as opposed to the effect of interest rates.
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William Barnett Ii, Walter E. Block
The Rate of Time Preference: a Praxeological Oxymoron
Summary:
In ordinal utility analysis, one can but prefer or set aside. A person can choose option A or option B. Chalk or cheese, guns or butter. There cannot be any such thing as a rate at which a man engages in such activities. Cardinality cannot enter into the picture. No one prefers a given amount of chalk twice as much as cheese. This basic praxeological insight should not be lost sight of when we enter the more complex realm of time preference and interest rate determination. And yet, it commonly is. For we all speak of a “time preference rate.” This is an oxymoron and a praxeological monstrosity. The present paper is devoted to promoting clear thinking by attempting to purify economic language, so as to jettison the concept of a “time preference rate.”
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Kuzman Iliev
The School of Free Banking with Fractional Reserves versus The School of Full Reservation of Deposits - an Economic Reflection of Modern Concepts in Banking and Monetary Policy
Summary:
The study presents a comparative analysis of the two modern pro-market schools in the field of monetary theory and banking – the school of free banking with fractional reserves and the school of full deposit reservation. In this way, the paper outlines the guidelines to be followed in developing theories, concepts and proposals for improving or perfecting the money supply management. In concrete terms, the analysis considers the alternatives for the implementation of banking and the positioning of the central bank in the schools of free banking with fractional reserves and the full reservation of deposits, the methodological nature of a market process in their frameworks and an interpretation of the two schools in relation to the functions of deposits, the interest rate, deflation and quantitative easing.
