This paper offers an empirical analysis of how public and private debt jointly influence economic growth. We consider the endogeneity and interlink of two debt variables which are subject to regime switch in a dynamic panel data model. Using data from 29 OECD countries, the threshold effect of the interaction of the public and private debt on economic growth is found to be negative and significant when the aggregate debt to GDP ratio reaches 220%, beyond which the marginal effect of public (or private) debt further increases on top of the non-interactive effect. It is shown that the true effect of individual debt is largely underestimated if the interactive effect is omitted. We also decompose private debt into household and corporate debt and show that the public–private debt interaction is likely operating through the channels of household debt and public debt. We examine the robustness of the threshold effects to banking crises, output volatility, institutional quality, tax, private and public pension savings, participation rate as well as potential outliers.

本文对公共和私人债务如何共同影响经济增长进行了实证分析。我们在动态面板数据模型中考虑了受制度转换影响的两个债务变量的内生性和相互联系。使用 29 个经合组织国家的数据，发现当总债务与 GDP 的比率达到 220% 时，公共和私人债务相互作用对经济增长的阈值效应为负且显着，超过该值时公共（或私人债务）的边际效应) 除了非互动效应之外，债务进一步增加。结果表明，如果忽略交互作用，个人债务的真实影响在很大程度上被低估了。我们还将私人债务分解为家庭债务和公司债务，并表明公私债务互动可能通过家庭债务和公共债务的渠道运作。我们研究了门槛效应对银行业危机、产出波动、制度质量、税​​收、私人和公共养老金储蓄、参与率以及潜在异常值的稳健性。