A Guide to Sovereign Debt Data

S. M. Ali Abbas and Kenneth Rogoff

No 2019/195, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: The last decade or so has seen a mushrooming of new sovereign debt databases covering long time spans for several countries. This represents an important breakthrough for economists who have long sought to, but been unable to tackle, first-order questions such as why countries have differential debt tolerance, and how debt levels affect the scope for countercyclical policy in recessions and financial crises. This paper backdrops these recent data efforts, identifying both the key innovations, as well as caveats that users should be aware of. A Directory of existing publicly-available sovereign debt databases, featuring compilations by institutions and individual researchers, is also included.

Keywords: WP; country; debt; government; debt data; holder information; debt structure; high-level government debt data; state debt; GDP ratio; debt holder information; GDP data; HIPC country; low-income country; debt securities issuance; debt maturity; Domestic debt; Emerging and frontier financial markets; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21
Date: 2019-09-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-opm
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