Debt vulnerabilities in low-income countries have increased substantially in recent years. Since 2013, median government debt has risen by about 20 percentage points of gross domestic product and increasingly comes from non-concessional and private sources. As a result, in most low-income...

This paper introduces a new data set on the stock and structure of domestic debt in 36 low-income countries over the period 1971-2011. It characterizes the recent trends regarding the do-mestic public debt of low-income countries and explores the relevance of different arguments put forward on...

Is generalized debt relief an effective development strategy, or should assistance be tailored to countries' characteristics? To answer this question, the authors build a simple model in which recipient governments reveal their creditworthiness if donors offer them to choose between aid and debt...

The magnitude of the public liabilities incurred as a result of the unprecedented government action in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008-2009, and the consequences of exiting from the projected high debt scenario, have become a major source of concern about a future sovereign debt crisis....

Governments play a very important role in supporting innovation, managing the disruptive effects of innovation, and ensuring that the benefits of innovation are broadly shared in the long run. This paper reviews the literature on market mechanisms that translate innovation into jobs and policies...

This paper quantitatively assesses the effects of inflation shocks on the public debt-to-GDP ratio in 19 advanced economies using simulation and estimation approaches. The simulations based on the debt dynamics equation and estimations of impulse responses by local projections both suggest that...

This paper proposes a sovereign asset and liability management framework for analyzing the inter-relationships between debt management, fiscal and monetary policies. It illustrates the consequences of uncoordinated policy mix and extends Sargent and Wallace (1981 and 1993) by including debt...

Greece and Italy initiated efforts to improve public debt management and develop their domestic debt markets respectively in the late 1970s and mid-1980s. At that time, both countries suffered from large and rapidly growing public debt, excessive reliance on short-term bills held by commercial...

This paper analyzes the status of public debt management performance in 17 small states through the findings of the Debt Management Performance Assessment reports. Empirical evidence indicates that the higher the quality of a country's policies and institutions, the better is its capacity to...

Foreign investors are increasingly important participants in the local currency sovereign bond markets of developing countries. This note provides context on the overall growth of local currency sovereign debt markets in emerging markets and the growth of foreign investor participation in these...