This article surveys the literature on sovereign debt sustainability from its origins in the mid-1980s to the present, focusing on four debates. First, the shift from an "accounting based" view of debt sustainability, evaluated using government borrowing rates, to a "model based" view which uses...

Using a simple general equilibrium model, we argue that it would be appropriate for a central bank with a large balance sheet composed of long-duration nominal assets to have access to, and be willing to ask for, support for its balance sheet by the fiscal authority. Otherwise its ability to...

In a floor system of monetary policy implementation, the central bank remunerates bank reserves at or near the market rate of interest. Some observers have expressed concern that operating such a system will have adverse fiscal consequences for the public sector and may even require the...

This paper reviews the fiscal activities that governments in a sample of 26 developing countries have obliged their central banks to undertake. In the main, these activities fall under five categories: (1) collecting seigniorage; (2) imposing financial restriction; (3) implementing selective...

Central banks have an incentive to monitor the fiscal position of the government for at least two reasons. First fiscal policy can constrain the implementation of monetary policy, particularly when governments call on the central bank to fund government programmes. Second, fiscal policy measures...

This paper covers fiscal policy tools that promote sustainability and their influence on monetary policy in Russia, the Bank of Russia's role in public debt management and main features of the domestic currency public debt market. At present Russia's budgetary circumstances are quite favourable,...

The global financial crisis showed that both authorities and markets failed to properly assess the size and the evolution of the public debt stock in various economies. In some countries the monetary authorities focused excessively on inflation, without taking into account other key...