On Concepts of Debt Sustainability: a Reply to Dr Harck

The author dismisses the criticisms made by Dr. Harck as being unhelpful in clarifying the concept of sustainability. The author restates his position that the approach he suggests in tackling public debt is to extend the inquiry on debt to consider for each country its total indebtedness and the composition of the debt by considering public and private debt as well as internal and external debt. Thus in this context, it cannot be excluded (at least not in principle) that acceptable levels of public debt could be agreed on a country by country basis.