I estimated the impact on GDP of America’s recent and projected debt increase (in which the explosive growth of public spending on pensions and health care looms largest), using four alternative estimates of the effect of debt on growth: a smaller Reinhart/Rogoff estimate from a more recent paper; a widely used International Monetary Fund study, which finds a larger impact (and which deals with the potential reverse-causality problem); a related CBO study; and a simple production function with government debt crowding out tangible capital. The results were quite similar: unless entitlement costs are brought under control, the resulting rise in debt will cut US living standards by roughly 20% in a generation.
我估计了美国当前和计划中的债务增加（其中在退休金和医疗卫生方面的支出的爆炸性增加占了大头）对GDP的影响。我采用了四种不同的方法估计债务对增长的效应：一项取自更新论文的更小的莱因哈特/罗格夫估计；一项广泛使用的IMF研究，该研究得出的影响较大（它处理逆因果关系问题）；一项相关CBO研究；以及一个关于政府债务挤出有形资本的生产函数。结果相当接近：除非福利成本得到控制，否则由此导致的债务上升将在一代人的时间里让美国生活水平下降20%左右。