The management of the national debt is a central part of monetary management and at the same time a branch of Exchequer financing; as the Radcliffe Committee observed, it now consists of much more than a search for the cheapest way of dealing with a nuisance. The reconciliation of the diverse and often conflicting aims involved, and the methods and tactics adopted in pursuing them, are as much issues of monetary policy as of good housekeeping for the Government, though clearly they are not the whole of either.
This article is not a comprehensive review of the management of public sector debt in all its forms. It deals only with the nature of the market for gilt-edged stocks (government stocks and stocks of the nationalised industries carrying government guarantees), and with the purposes, tactics, and limitations of stock issues and official transactions in this market.
Official transactions in the gilt-edged market