tailieunhanh - A Historical Public Debt Database

To obtain the content summary of a database, a metasearcher could rely on the database to supply the summary (., by following a protocol like STARTS [12], or possibly using Semantic Web [1] tags in the future). Unfortunately many web-accessible text databases are completely autonomous and do not report any detailed metadata about their contents to facilitate metasearch- ing. To handle such databases, a metasearcher could rely on manually generated descriptions of the database con- tents. Such an approach would not scale to the thousands of text databases available on the web [2], and would likely not produce the good-quality, fine-grained content summaries required by database selection algorithms. In this paper, we present. | WP 10 245 A Historical Public Debt Database S. Ali Abbas Nazim Belhocine Asmaa ElGanainy and Mark Horton INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND 2010 International Monetary Fund WP 10 245 IMF Working Paper Fiscal Affairs Department A Historical Public Debt Database Prepared by S. Ali Abbas Nazim Belhocine Asmaa ElGanainy and Mark Horton1 Authorized for distribution by Mark Horton November 2010 Abstract This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF. The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author s and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author s and are published to elicit comments and to further debate. This paper describes the compilation of the first truly comprehensive database on gross government debt-to-GDP ratios covering nearly the entire IMF membership 174 countries and spanning an exceptionally long time period. The database was constructed by bringing together a number of other datasets and information from original sources. For the most recent years the data are linked to the IMF World Economic Outlook WEO database to facilitate regular updates. The paper discusses the evolution of debt-to-GDP ratios across country groups for several decades episodes of debt spikes and reversals and a pattern of negative correlation between debt and growth. Link to Data JEL Classification Numbers H6 N1 F3. Keywords Historical Debt Public Debt Gross Debt Debt-to-GDP Debt Database. Authors E-Mail Address sabbas@ nbelhocine@ aelganainy@ mhorton@ 1 The database was compiled with the help of Joong Beom Shin and Seok Gil Park and with support from Sarah Buss Raquel Gomez-Sierra Nezha Khaneboubi and especially Oriel Fernandes. The authors thank Professor Alessandro Missale Università di Milano for sharing his public debt dataset on advanced economies and Ryland Thomas Bank of England for providing guidance to historical sources for .