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Government debt (also known as public debt, national debt and sovereign debt)〔(【引用サイトリンク】work=United State Department of the Treasury )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】work=United State Department of the Treasury )〕 is the debt owed by a central government. (In federal states, "government debt" may also refer to the debt of a state or provincial, municipal or local government.) By contrast, the annual "government deficit" refers to the difference between government receipts and spending in a single year, that is, the increase of debt over a particular year. Government debt is one method of financing government operations, but it is not the only method. Governments can also create money to monetize their debts, thereby removing the need to pay interest. But this practice simply reduces government interest costs rather than truly canceling government debt,〔The Economics of Money, Banking, and the Financial Markets 7ed, Frederic S. Mishkin〕 and can result in hyperinflation if used unsparingly. Governments usually borrow by issuing securities, government bonds and bills. Less creditworthy countries sometimes borrow directly from a supranational organization (e.g. the World Bank) or international financial institutions. As the government draws its income from much of the population, government debt is an indirect debt of the taxpayers. Government debt can be categorized as internal debt (owed to lenders within the country) and external debt (owed to foreign lenders). Another common division of government debt is by duration until repayment is due. Short term debt is generally considered to be for one year or less, long term is for more than ten years. Medium term debt falls between these two boundaries. A broader definition of government debt may consider all government liabilities, including future pension payments and payments for goods and services the government has contracted but not yet paid. ==History== During the Early Modern era, European monarchs would often default on their loans or arbitrarily refuse to pay them back. This generally made financiers wary of lending to the king and the finances of countries that were often at war remained extremely volatile. The creation of the first central bank in England - an institution designed to lend to the government - was initially an expedient by William III of England for the financing of his war against France. He engaged a syndicate of City traders and merchants to offer for sale an issue of government debt. This syndicate soon evolved into the Bank of England, eventually financing the wars of the Duke of Marlborough and later Imperial conquests. The establishment of the bank was devised by Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, in 1694, to the plan which had been proposed by William Paterson three years before, but had not been acted upon.〔 "Its foundation in 1694 arose out the difficulties of the Government of the day in securing subscriptions to State loans. Its primary purpose was to raise and lend money to the State and in consideration of this service it received under its Charter and various Act of Parliament, certain privileges of issuing bank notes. The corporation commenced, with an assured life of twelve years after which the Government had the right to annul its Charter on giving one year's notice. '''Subsequent extensions of this period coincided generally with the grant of additional loans to the State'''"〕 He proposed a loan of £1.2m to the government; in return the subscribers would be incorporated as ''The Governor and Company of the Bank of England'' with long-term banking privileges including the issue of notes. The Royal Charter was granted on 27 July through the passage of the Tonnage Act 1694.〔H. Roseveare, /The Financial Revolution 1660–1760/ (1991, Longman), pp. 34〕 The founding of the Bank of England revolutionised public finance and put an end to defaults such as the ''Great Stop of the Exchequer'' of 1672, when Charles II had suspended payments on his bills. From then on, the British Government would never fail to repay its creditors. In the following centuries, other countries in Europe and later around the world adopted similar financial institutions to manage their government debt. In 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, British government debt reached a peak of more than 200% of GDP.〔(UK public spending ) Retrieved September 2011〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Government debt」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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