This paper investigates the major drivers of the public debt growth in 184 countries. Our analysis consists in a cross-country survey, which is conducted on the basis of the improved compilation of datasets on the central government debt for 2013. In order to differentiate between...

Government intervention to stabilise financial systems in times of banking crises ultimately involves political decisions. This paper sheds light on how certain political variables influence policy choices during banking crises and hence have an impact on fiscal outlays. We employ cross-country...