The paper discusses the trajectories of the Greek public deficit andsovereign debt between 1980 and 2010 and its connection to thepolitical and economic environment of the same period. We payspecial attention to the causality between the public and the externaldeficit in the period after 1995,...

"Over the past decade the United States has experienced widening current account deficits and a steady deterioration of its net foreign asset position. During the second half of the 1990s, this deterioration was fueled by foreign investment in a booming U.S. stock market. During the first half...