Study title

“Public debt is a controversially discussed revenue type of the state. Already in early centuries it was a controversial theme when palatial selfish rulers ran into debt to finance their construction activities (example: Old-Bavarian debt policy in the 17th and 18th century, see Zimmermann, H., 1999: Ökonomische Rechtfertigung einer kontinuierlichen Staatsverschuldung, in: Henke, K.-D. (eds.), 1999: Zur Zukunft der Staatsfinanzierung. Baden-Baden, p. 159). Given the level of public debt the discussion about the theoretical economic foundations and the legal restrictions is highly topical. In addition, the European Monetary Union and the European Stability and Growth Pact induced completely new debt limitations in Germany. Questions concerning the justification and limitation of public debt are not new, but sine 19th century important issues in the financial and political scientific discussion. The exclusivity of the topic public debt is due to the fact that it is not confined to one subject, but must be interdisciplinary discussed from an economic and legal perspective. This is because political and institutional factors need to be taken into account” (Wucherpfennig, a. cit., p.17). Issues associated with public debt are located at the interface between economics, law and politics. A consequence of this is that one subject area cannot ignore the findings of the others. The first part of this study is about the development of public debt and of business cycle policies in the Federal Republic of Germany, about the problems related with increasing public debt, about consolidation efforts and about the legal discussion. In the second part the development of public debt in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1950 to 2004 is presented empirically. Besides the total amount of the net debt and the debt level, the relation to other public finance data is of primary importance. “The level of debt and the annual burden of debt servicing and repayment may not be considered...