Central bank-bought government debt is still government debt

Steele, Gerald and Whittaker, John (2013) Central bank-bought government debt is still government debt. UNSPECIFIED.

Abstract

This note challenges two claims made by De Grauwe and Ji: 1) that government bonds which have been purchased by the central bank could be eliminated from the government’s debt figures; 2) that a default on Spanish government bonds owned by the ECB would not constitute a loss for Germany