Here's the abstract for a paper I recently completed on Off-Balance-Sheet Federal Liabilities:
Much attention has been given to the recent growth of the U.S. federal debt. This paper examines the growth of federal liabilities that are not included in the officially reported numbers. These take the form of implicit or explicit government guarantees and commitments. The five major categories surveyed include support for housing, other loan guarantees, deposit insurance, actions taken by the Federal Reserve, and government trust funds. The total dollar value of notional off-balance-sheet commitments came to $70 trillion as of 2012, or 6 times the size of the reported on-balance-sheet debt. The paper reviews the potential costs and benefits of these off-balance-sheet commitments and their role in precipitating or mitigating the financial crisis of 2008.
What follows is a brief summary of the paper....Econobrower
Off-balance-sheet federal liabilities
James Hamilton
"...costing U.S. taxpayers..."
These off-balance-sheet concerns may or may not translate into significant on-balance-sheet problems. But one thing seems undeniable-- they are huge. And implicit or explicit commitments of such a huge size have the potential to have huge economic consequences, perhaps for the better, perhaps for the worse.It's possible that the sky will fall, but it could also be an especially nice time. Thanks for the weather report.
