Joe Biden's chief economic adviser joins a proactive investor who was one of the largest private investors in Greek government bonds in dispelling a number of widespread misconceptions about public finance and sovereign debt, with particular focus on the inadequacies of the conventional measures used by politicians, the media, and even many economists when assessing the financial performance and condition of national governments. After describing the limitations of the “traditional debt and deficit model,” Paul B. Kazarian proposes the use of an alternative called Public Financial Management, or “PFM,” that has been implemented in New Zealand, the U.K. and 12 other countries. Such a model aims to provide a general government total balance sheet (federal, state, and local governments) that reflects all government assets and liabilities. And when using PFM, one finds, for example, that New Zealand is consistently ranked first or second in the world on Government Total Net Worth as percentage of GDP and Citizens' Wealth (CW1), whereas the U.S. falls well below the top tier.

中文翻译：

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哥伦比亚商业学校圆桌会议打破公共财政模型

乔·拜登（Joe Biden）的首席经济顾问与一位积极的投资者一道，该投资者是希腊政府债券中最大的私人投资者之一，消除了对公共财政和主权债务的许多普遍误解，尤其着眼于政治家所采用的常规措施的不足之处。媒体，甚至许多经济学家在评估各国政府的财务表现和状况时。在描述了“传统债务和赤字模型”的局限性之后，保罗·B·卡扎里安（Paul B. Kazarian）建议使用一种称为“公共财务管理”的替代方案，该替代方案已在新西兰，英国和其他12个国家中实施。这种模型旨在提供反映所有政府资产和负债的广义政府总资产负债表（联邦，州和地方政府）。