The Commitment Benefit of Consols in Government Debt Management

Abstract

We consider optimal government debt maturity in a deterministic economy in which the government can issue any arbitrary debt maturity structure and in which bond prices are a function of the government’s current and future primary surpluses. The government sequentially chooses policy, taking into account how current choices—which impact future policy—feed back into current bond prices. We show that issuing consols constitutes the unique stationary optimal debt portfolio, as it boosts government credibility to future policy and reduces the debt financing costs. (JEL E62, G12, H61, H63)