Contrary to the traditional assumption of interest rates on government debt exceeding economic growth, negative interest-growth differentials became prevalent after the global financial crisis and before the COVID-19 pandemic. Should negative differentials be grounds for sleeping more soundly, despite high government debts? We analyze interest-growth differentials using data on average effective borrowing costs for 55 countries over up to 200 years. Negative differentials prevail for both advanced and emerging economies. Even so, several default episodes have followed periods of negative differentials, and differentials are no higher prior to defaults than in normal times. Marginal (rather than average) government borrowing costs often rise sharply, but just preceding default. Based on these results, our answer is: not really.

与对政府债务超过经济增长的利率的传统假设相反，在全球金融危机之后和COVID-19大流行之前，负增长之间的负差变得普遍。尽管政府债务沉重，但负差额是否应成为更安稳睡眠的理由？我们使用长达200年的55个国家的平均有效借贷成本数据来分析利率增长差异。发达经济体和新兴经济体普遍存在负差额。即便如此，几个默认情节之后都出现了负差额，并且差额在默认值之前不高于正常时间。边际（而不是平均）政府借贷成本通常急剧上升，但在违约之前。根据这些结果，我们的答案是：并非如此。