public credit

public credit

1. (finance) The loan of money to a government body in return for a bond or similar promissory note.
   • 1936, Harley Leist Lutz, Public Finance, page 14:

     The use of credit by a government is simply one of the ways by which income may be obtained, but it is more convenient to deal with the special characteristics of public debts and the use of public credit as a distinct aspect of the subject, and this is done in part IV.

   • 2012, Hans-Hermann Francke, Eberhart Ketzel, Hans-Helmut Kotz, Handbook of Public Credit in Europe, page 231:

     Therefore the actual and substantive decision authority for public credit lies with the Ministry of Finance which decides on the credit-worthiness of every public utility.

   • 2020, Natalie Roxburgh, Representing Public Credit, page 1:

     Public credit was controversial in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England.