Countries increasingly rely on independent fiscal councils to constrain policymakers' discretion and curb the bias towards excessive deficits and pro-cyclical policies. Since fiscal councils are often recent and heterogeneous across countries, assessing their impact is challenging. Using the...

This paper describes the compilation of the Global Debt Database (GDD), a cutting-edge dataset covering private and public debt for virtually the entire world (190 countries) dating back to the 1950s. The GDD is the result of a multiyear investigative process that started with the October 2016...

Countries increasingly rely on independent fiscal councils to constrain policymakers' discretion and curb the bias towards excessive deficits and pro-cyclical policies. Since fiscal councils are often recent and heterogeneous across countries, assessing their impact is challenging. Using the...

This paper relies on the ‘institutional debt rule’ implemented in Franc Zone countries to assess whether the structural vulnerability of these countries matter for their probability to enter into excessive indebtedness. This structural vulnerability is measured by retrospective ‘Economic...

In this study, we examine the effect of structural economic vulnerability of developing countries on their public indebtedness. We perform our econometric analysis by relying on 96 developing countries over the period 1980-2008. The results suggest evidence of a “U-shaped” relationship...