Staatsverschuldung im Paradigmenwechsel von Keynesianismus zu Neoklassik

In the late 1960s, it was taken for granted in financial science that public debt could not be assessed in the same way as the debt of an individual household due to the enormous economic significance of government spending. Nowadays, however, the situation is quite the opposite. Both in prevailing economic theories and in public debate, little distinction is made between state debt and individual household debt, with public debt being regarded as one of the greatest evils. The differing assessments of public debt are based on various economic theoretical paradigms, namely Keynesianism and neoclassicism. This paper examines how this shift occurred by analyzing the annual reports of the Council of Economic Experts on the overall economic development, providing insights that extend beyond the immediate topic regarding the relationship between science, economic development, and economic and financial policy strategies.