PUBLIC DEBT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Abstract

The main aim of the article is to present the relationships between public debt and economic growth in the European Union in the period 2000–2010. The article consists of two parts. The first part deals with theoretical analysis of the relationships between public debt and economic growth, including reasons and factors determining these relationships. In the next part of article, there are examined the relationships between public debt and gross domestic product in the EU by using the Vector Autoregression Model (VAR). There are estimated elasticity coefficients of public debt to GDP and elasticity coefficients of GDP to public debt on the base of impulse response function. Then, there is made variance decomposition of the public debt and GDP in order to assess the impact of these factors on the variability of GDP and public debt respectively.