The last decade or so has seen a mushrooming of new sovereign debt databases covering long time spans for several countries. This represents an important breakthrough for economists who have long sought to, but been unable to tackle, first-order questions such as why countries have differential debt tolerance, and how debt levels affect the scope for countercyclical policy in recessions and financial crises. This paper backdrops these recent data efforts, identifying both the key innovations, as well as caveats that users should be aware of. A Directory of existing publicly-available sovereign debt databases, featuring compilations by institutions and individual researchers, is also included.
摘要
在过去的十年左右的时间里,新的主权债务数据库如雨后春笋般出现,涵盖了多个国家的很长一段时间。对于那些长期以来一直试图解决但无法解决一阶问题的经济学家来说,这是一个重要的突破,例如为什么国家对债务的容忍度有所不同,以及债务水平如何影响经济衰退和金融危机中反周期政策的范围。本文以最近的数据工作为背景,确定了关键的创新以及用户应注意的警告。还包括现有公开可用的主权债务数据库目录,其中包含机构和个人研究人员的汇编。(机器翻译)