Instruments of Debtstruction: A New Database of Interwar Debt

Nicolas End, Marina Marinkov and Fedor Miryugin

No 2019/226, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: We construct a new, comprehensive instrument-level database of sovereign debt for 18 advanced and emerging countries over the period 1913–46. The database contains data on amounts outstanding for some 3,800 individual debt instruments as well as associated qualitative information, including instrument type, coupon rate, maturity, and currency of issue. This information can provide unique insights into various policies implemented in the interwar period, which was characterized by notoriously high debt levels. We document how interwar governments rolled over debts that were largely unsustainable and how the external public debt network contributed to the collapse of the international financial system in the early 1930s.

Keywords: WP; central bank; coupon rate; maturity; short-term debt; Economic History; Debt Policy; Public Finance; Macroeconomics; longer-term maturity debt; debt maturity structure; debt management practice; central bank exposure; debt management matter; rate of return; debt contract; structure of debt; gold standard; Securities; Government debt management; Bonds; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47
Date: 2019-10-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=48689 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2019/226

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().