William R. Cline, Peterson Institute for International Economics. October 2014

Working Paper 14-9: “Over the next decade, the United States will have to do more to keep the debt-to-GDP ratio from escalating, while much more will need to be done in Japan. Using the probability-weighted ratio of net debt to GDP (federal debt held by the public for the United States), holding the ratio flat at its 2013 level would require cutting the 2024 debt ratio by 8 percentage points of GDP for the United States and by 32 percentage points of GDP for Japan. Achieving this outcome would involve reducing the average primary deficit by about 0.75 percent of GDP from the baseline in the United States and by about 3 percent of GDP in Japan. Data disclosure: The data underlying the figures in this analysis are available here [xlsx].”