WP/19/195

A Guide to Sovereign Debt Data

by S. Ali Abbas and Kenneth Rogoff,

with Chengyu Huang and Kunxiang Diao

IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published
to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers
are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its
Executive Board, or IMF management.
© 2019 International Monetary Fund 2 WP/19/195

IMF Working Paper

Strategy, Policy, and Review Department

A Guide to Sovereign Debt Data 1

Prepared by S. Ali Abbas and Kenneth Rogoff,

with Chengyu Huang and Kunxiang Diao
Authorized for distribution by Mark Flanagan

September 2019

IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to
elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are
those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board,
or IMF management.

Abstract

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.

JEL-Classification Numbers: H6, H63, N1, F3.

Keywords: sovereign debt, public debt, government debt, debt statistics, historical database

Author’s E-Mail Address: sabbas@imf.org, krogoff@harvard.edu, kdiao@imf.org and

chuang@imf.org

1
The contents of this working paper are expected to be included in the forthcoming book: S. Ali Abbas, Alex
Pienkowski, and Kenneth Rogoff (eds), Sovereign Debt: A Guide for Economists and Practitioners, Oxford
University Press.
 3

Background

Over the past decade, there has been a quantum leap in the development of long-dated cross-
country sovereign debt databases that has provided both important resources for researchers,
as well as a more complete frame of reference for policymakers and investors. To understand
issues surrounding the risks and opportunities from sovereign debt, it is important to know
not only current magnitudes, maturities, and currency of denomination, but also to have
extensive historical data on these same variables. Otherwise, it is extremely difficult to
meaningfully ask questions such as “At what levels of debt do emerging markets begin to
face high risks of losing investor confidence?, Does entering a deep recession or financial
crisis with very high public debt impede a country’s ability to engage in countercyclical
fiscal policy?” This appendix showcases some of the resources now available.

It should be noted that although this topic received little attention from official lenders
(including the International Monetary Fund (IMF)) until the 2008 financial crisis, the IMF
has since devoted considerable resources and moved to the forefront of this topic (as of this
writing). The IMF’s new work begins with the publication of the historical debt database of
Abbas and others, 2 (2010)—which importantly builds on the archival research of Reinhart
and Rogoff (2009in This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly—and, more
recently, the even more ambitious IMF 2018 Global Debt Database (GDD) which now
provides the most comprehensive account of private and public debt since World War II (see
Mbaye, Moreno Badia, and Chae 2018). 3

While it may seem hard to believe, prior to Reinhart and Rogoff’s This Time is Different
work (and their two earlier 2008 NBER papers), 4 modern researchers had access to only
extremely limited long-dated historical data on total public debt. While data on public debt
issued abroad was widely available, data on domestically-issued debt was extremely sparse.
Indeed, such data was not available for most advanced economies for the period before the
1980s. The problem was worse for emerging markets and low-income countries, with studies
like Abbas and Christensen (2007) forced to use banking system claims on government as a

2
“A Historical Public Debt Database,” IMF Working Paper 10/245, also published as “Historical Patterns and
Dynamics of Public Debt—Evidence From a New Database,” IMF Economic Review, Volume 59, Issue 4.
3
“The Global Debt Database: Methodology and Sources,” IMF Working Paper 18/111. For the data, see
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2018/05/14/Global-Debt-Database-Methodology-and-Sources-
45838. The GDD aims to address several shortcomings of previous databases. First, it takes a fundamentally
new approach to compiling historical data. The GDD adopts a multidimensional approach by offering multiple
debt series with different coverages, thus ensuring greater consistency across time. Second, it more than doubles
the cross-sectional dimension of existing private debt datasets. Finally, the integrity of the data has been
checked through bilateral consultations with officials and IMF country desks of all countries in the sample.
4
“This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises,” NBER Working Paper
13882; and “The Forgotten History of Domestic Debt,” NBER Working Paper No. 13946.
 4

proxy. 5 This fact (which was first emphasized in Reinhart, Rogoff, and Savastano 2003) may
sound incredible to those who are not empirical researchers using macroeconomic data. 6 The
reasons why the data was not better kept are something of a mystery, but it is nevertheless
true that long-dated historical data on domestically-issued public debt and, hence, total public
debt, was not available in any standard source, even the debt time series published by the
IMF or the World Bank. 7

This lack of historical debt data was a huge omission that, as Reinhart and Rogoff (2009)
(and in several related papers) showed, led to a blind spot in research in many areas, for
example, the risks of sovereign debt crisis, and the genesis of very high inflation.
Importantly, Reinhart and Rogoff (2009) contained extensive documentation of data sources
for constructing long-dated time series on public debt, both domestically-issued and issued
abroad, offering a blueprint for replication and extensions, including the IMF’s important
research that followed. As Reinhart and Rogoff discuss, and as others have since replicated, a
critical archival source turned out to be old volumes of the League of Nations. One fact
Reinhart and Rogoff found was that, contrary to widespread belief, many emerging markets,
including in Latin America, had been able to issue in earlier decades large quantities of long-
term debt denominated in their own currencies. For many of these countries, therefore, the
problem of “original sin” actually started with the hyperinflations of the 1980s and 1990s.

Another major gap in the data concerned the currency composition of debt. Even for debt
issued abroad, data on currency of denomination had been very limited, except for the
modern period (as for example the data employed in Bevilaqua, Bulow, and Rogoff, 1992). 8
But, again, recent work by IMF economists (notably Abbas and others, 2014) has taken large
strides in remedying this situation by providing extensive data on both currency of
denomination and maturity, data that allows far more nuanced analyses of debt vulnerabilities
than was previously possible. 9

More recently, there have been many other important advances, as embodied in the data sets
listed below. Importantly, the databases listed in this appendix are all associated with careful
scholarly research. Whereas they have been integral to construction of the IMF’s GDD, they
are of particular use for researchers precisely because there are typically associated research

5
“The Role of Domestic Debt Markets in Economic Growth: An Empirical Investigation for Low-Income
Countries and Emerging Markets,” IMF Working Paper 07/127.
6
“Debt Intolerance,” NBER Working Paper No. 9908.
7
One explanation that is sometime presented is that, until the 1980s/1990s, many countries did not have modern
debt management offices that would collect all debt data; and that these functions remained segregated in
different parts of the finance ministries/central banks. However, this cannot fully explain why total public debt
coverage was relatively good in the inter-war period, the lack of incentive to institute dedicated debt
management offices till the 1980s, or why international financial institutions did not put greater priority on
catalyzing the collection of historical domestic debt data.
8
“Official Creditor Seniority and Burden Sharing in the Former Soviet Bloc,” Brookings Papers in Economic
Activity 1.
9
“Sovereign Debt Composition in Advance Economies: A Historical Perspective,” IMF Working Paper 14/162.
 5

papers with detailed discussion and documentation that aid an understanding of the data, and
potentially allow a check of the decisions made in constructing it by making reference to the
original sources.

Caveat emptor: Tedious historical and archival research lies at the heart of many of these
new data sets; it is hard enough to decide how to measure contemporaneous debt (for
example, should the central bank and central government balance sheet be integrated?, how
does one account for the debt of state-owned enterprises, how does one account for
government assets?, what about unfunded pension liabilities?) but historical ones are more
difficult, particularly in the many cases where the data had effectively been lost or forgotten
until recently—a widespread problem with public debt data. And the problems just increase
when one wants to bring in other variables, for example, in forming debt/GDP ratios.
Although some researchers seem blithely unaware of the fact, Gross Domestic Product is in
fact a relatively modern construct, developed by Simon Kuznets and his collaborators in the
mid-1930s. Economic historians have done very important work trying to artificially
reconstruct historical data (most famously, the work of the late Angus Madison who curated
data from many other researchers,
https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/), but there are huge gaps and
many assumptions are required. Indeed, even many of today’s advanced economies took
many years after the Second World War to build up their statistical capabilities so that for
quite a few states data before 1955 can be unreliable, and for some this is the case going into
the 1960s.

A second important caveat relates to cross-country and time series comparability of debt
data. Because researchers have an interest in developing long time series for as many
countries as possible, they often make expedient decisions regarding inclusion/exclusion of
data that can result in statistical inconsistencies: for instance, a long debt series for an
individual country may concatenate central government debt in the early years with general
government debt in later years (an issue made transparent in Mauro and others, 2013); 10 or
public debt numbers can be reported for two sovereigns for the same year but without noting
the differences in instrument coverage, valuation basis, and netting of assets. 11

With this background, readers should be able to better appreciate both the major gaps in
sovereign debt data, as well as the important advances recently made by institutions and
researchers to address those gaps. The Directory of Sovereign Debt Databases that follows
provides a state-of-play on these advances, by providing a listing of known sovereign debt
datasets currently available for use by researchers and practitioners.

10
“A Modern History of Fiscal Prudence and Profligacy,” IMF Working Paper No. 13/5, International Monetary
Fund, Washington, DC.
11
To be able to analyze and balance the competing considerations of larger sample and comparability, and to
appropriately qualify their conclusions, researchers may find useful the international methodological standards
on compiling public sector debt (e.g., the IMF’s Public Sector Debt Statistics Guide for Compilers and Users,
2013 and Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014).
 6

Appendix Table 1 provides a tabular summary of the databases included in the Directory.
These are listed in alphabetical order and subdivided into two broad categories: Researcher
databases, and Institutional databases. For each database, information is provided on time
and country coverage; as well on the types of variables included; these broadly fall into four
categories: debt-to-GDP levels, debt structure (currency, maturity, holder profile);
crises/restructurings; and other public finance.

Appendix Table 1: Summary of Sovereign Debt Databases

No. Researchers/ Name of database Coverage Debt- Debt Crises/ Other

Institution (years to- structure Restruct- public
countries) GDP urings finance
Researcher Databases
1 Abbas, Belhocine, A Historical Public Debt 1692-2018 √ √
El-Ganainy & Database 178 economies
Horton
2 Abbas & The Role of Domestic Debt 1970-2007 √
Christensen Markets in Economic Growth 93 EMLICs
3 Abbas, Blattner, De Sovereign Debt Composition 1900-2011 √ √ √
Broeck, El-Ganainy in Advanced Economies 13 AEs
& Hu
4 Arslanalp & Tsuda Tracking Global Demand for 2004-17 √ √ √
Sovereign Debt 24 EMs and 24
AEs
5 Beck, Demirguc- Financial Structure Database 1960-2017 √ √
Kunt, Levine, Cihak 214 economies
& Feyen
6 Cruces & Trebesch Sovereign Defaults: The Price 1970-2013 √
of Haircuts 72 economies
7 Hall, Payne and US Federal Debt 1776-1960: 1776-1960 √
Sargent Quantities and Price United States
8 Jaimovich & Public Debt around the World 1991-2005 √ √
Panizza 96 economies
9 Jeanne & Guscina Government Debt in 1980-2013 √ √
Emerging Market Countries 19 EMs
10 Kaminsky & Vega- Systemic and Idiosyncratic 1800-1960 √
Garcia Sovereign Debt Crises 7 LatAm EMs
11 Mauro, Romeu, A Modern History of Fiscal 1800-2011 √ √ √
Binder & Zaman Prudence and Profligacy 24 AEs, 31
EMLICs
12 Merler & Pisani- Bruegel Database of 1995-2017 √ √
Ferry Sovereign Bond Holdings 12 EC states; US
13 Panizza Domestic and External Public 1990-2007 √ √
Debt in Developing Countries 130 economies
14 Presbitero Domestic Debt in Low- 1970-2010 √
income Countries 44 LICs
15 Reinhart Dates for Banking Crises, 1800-2010 √ √
Currency Crashes, Sovereign 70 economies
Domestic or External Default
(or Restructuring), Inflation
Crises, and Stock Market
Crashes (Varieties)
16 Reinhart Debt-to-GDP Ratios 1692-2010 √ √
70 economies
17 Reinhart & Rogoff This Time Is Different 1800-2017 √ √
varies by dataset
18 Scott Manageing the UK National 1694-2018 √ √
Debt 1694-2018 United Kingdom
 7

Appendix Table 1. Summary of Sovereign Debt Databases (concluded)

No. Researchers/ Name of database Coverage Debt- Debt Crises/ Other

Institution (years to- structure Restruct- public
countries) GDP urings finance
Institutional Databases
19 BIS Debt Securities 1952-present √ √ √
157 economies
20 Bank of Canada Sovereign Default 1960-2017 √ √
145 economies
21 ECB Debt securities issuance and 2016-present √ √
service by EU government 28 EU
economies
22 IDB Living with Debt 1980-2013 √ √
26 LatAm
23 IDB Standardized Public Debt 2006-16 √ √ √
Database 26 LatAm
24 IMF Fiscal Monitor 2010-present √ √ √
115 economies
25 IMF Global Debt Database 1950-2017 √ √ √
190 economies
26 IMF International Financial 2000-present √ √ √
Statistics 194 economies
27 IMF Public Sector Balance Sheet 2000-present √ √ √
(PSBS) 38 economies
28 IMF World Economic Outlook 1980-2000 √ √
(WEO) 199 economies
29 OECD General Government Debt 1995-2017 √ √ √
OECD members
30 World Bank International Debt Statistics 1970-2016 √ √ √
(IDS) Mostly EMLICs
31 World Bank Quarterly External Debt 1998-present √ √ √
Statistics (QEDS) 40 EMLICs
32 World Bank Quaterly Public Sector Debt 1995-present √ √ √
(QPSD) 40 EMLICs
* AEs = Advanced Economies; EMs = Emerging Markets; EMLICs = emerging markets and low-income countries; LatAm = Latin
America; EC = European Commission, ECB = European Central Bank, BIS = Bank for International Settlements; IDB = Inter-American
Development Bank; IMF = International Monetary Fund.

Directory of Sovereign Debt Databases

(as of September 2018)

A. Researcher Databases

1. “A Historical Public Debt Database,” IMF Working Paper No. 10/245, International
Monetary Fund, Washington, DC 12
Authors: S. M. Ali Abbas, Nazim Belhocine, Asmaa El-Ganainy, and Mark Horton
Website: https://www.imf.org/~/media/Websites/IMF/imported-
datasets/external/pubs/ft/wp/2010/Data/_wp10245.ashx
Description: This database provides a very long time series of debt-to-GDP ratios for almost
all IMF member countries. The earliest data point starts from 1692. Most G-7 countries and a
few other advanced countries are covered since 1880 and the general coverage starts from

12
Also published as “Historical Patterns and Dynamics of Public Debt—Evidence From a New Database,” IMF
Economic Review Volume 59, Issue 4.
 8

1970. The database is compiled by combing various cross-country databases such as the
IMF’s World Economic Output and Statistical Handbooks from The League of Nations and
the United Nations. Other official government publications and databases compiled by other
previous researchers are also used.
Notes for researchers: This database aims to provide general government debt-to-GDP
ratios. However, in a lot of cases (especially for the period before 1980), central government
data was reported where data for general government was not available. Also, in the
database, debt is scaled to nominal GDP. However, GNP and NNP were used when GDP was
not available. Some data smoothing was applied when transiting from one source to another,
but larger breaks were indicated in the database. This database does not disaggregate public
debt into external and domestic.
Country coverage: 178 countries
Time coverage: 1692–2018 (partial coverage)
Frequency: Annual

2. “The Role of Domestic Debt Markets in Economic Growth: An Empirical

Investigation for Low-Income Countries and Emerging Markets”
Authors: S. M. Ali Abbas and Jakob E. Christensen
Website: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2016/12/31/The-Role-of-
Domestic-Debt-Markets-in-Economic-Growth-An-Empirical-Investigation-for-Low-20973
(contact SAbbas@imf.org for data)
Description: In this database domestic debt is defined as domestic currency debt owed to
domestic citizens and as commercial bank’s gross claims on the Central Government plus
central bank liquidity paper. The dataset excludes government debt held by retail investors
and non-banking institutions.
Country coverage: 93 low-income countries (LIC) and emerging markets
Time coverage: 1970–2007
Frequency: Annual

3. “Sovereign Debt Composition in Advanced Economies: A Historical Perspective,”

IMF Working Paper No. 14/162, International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC
Authors: S. M. Ali Abbas, Laura Blattner, Mark De Broeck, Asmaa El-Ganainy, and
Malin Hu
Website: http://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2016/12/31/Sovereign-Debt-
Composition-in-Advanced-Economies-A-Historical-Perspective-41899
Description: This data set examines the composition of sovereign debt in thirteen advanced
economies from 1900 to 2011 (Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy,
Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United States, United Kingdom). It is broken down by
currency, maturity, holder profile, and marketability. It provides valuable insights into
sovereign debt structure trends over the last century.
 9

Notes for researchers: Each debt component (by currency, maturity, holder profile and
marketability) is scaled to central government debt, except for Australia (sum of
commonwealth and state debt) and Italy (general government debt). The construction of long
series requiring combining data from different sources which in a number of cases resulted in
significant breaks in the series (e.g., Australian data in 1950). In some other cases data is
available but was not included in the data set as further verification of their accuracy is
needed (e.g., German debt composition data for the initial post-Second World War years).
Country coverage: 13 advanced economies
Time coverage: 1900–2011
Frequency: Annual

4. “Tracking Global Demand for Sovereign Debt,” IMF Working Paper WP/14/39 (and
WP/12/284), International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC
Authors: Serkan Arslanalp and Takahiro Tsuda
Website: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2016/12/31/Tracking-Global-
Demand-for-Emerging-Market-Sovereign-Debt-41399
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2016/12/31/Tracking-Global-Demand-for-
Advanced-Economy-Sovereign-Debt-40135
Description: The data set provides estimates of investor holdings of government debt of
twenty-four emerging market economies and twenty-four major advanced economies. The
investor base is grouped into six classes: domestic central bank, domestic banks, domestic
nonbanks, foreign official sector, foreign banks, and foreign nonbanks. All data are either in
face value or adjusted for valuation changes, where appropriate, to remove price
revaluations.
Notes for researchers: This database is a consolidation of multiple debt databases (including
International Financial Statistics (IFS), Bank of International Settlement (BIS), European
Central Bank (ECB), Eurostat, Consolidated Portfolio Investment Survey (CPIS), Currency
Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER), and Quarterly External Debt
Statistics (QEDS)) with authors’ estimations. It is subject to various measurement errors.
(1) Estimates for foreign central banks’ holdings may be understated. In this paper, foreign
central banks’ holdings are the sum of government securities held by foreign central banks as
reserve assets and foreign official loans and the data is largely based on IMF’s COFFER and
CPIS. Other types of foreign assets that are not included as reserve assets are not included in
this calculation. (2) Estimates for foreign bank holdings rely on BIS locational banking
statistics. In that sense, some of those estimates may be overstated for countries where there
is a large difference between locational and consolidated BIS statistics. (3) Foreign and
domestic nonbanks are calculated as implied values in this paper which may include
measurement errors.
Country coverage: 24 Emerging markets and 24 advanced economies
Time coverage: 2004–18
Frequency: Quarterly
 10

5. “Financial Structure Database”

Authors: Thorsten Beck, Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Ross Eric Levine, Martin Cihak and Erik
H.B. Feyen
Website: https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/gfdr/data/financial-structure-database
Description: This dataset is not focused on sovereign debt data but captures various aspects
of financial institutions and markets that could be very useful for researchers, including:
public/private bond market capitalization to GDP; international debt issues to GDP, loans
from non-resident banks (net/AMT outstanding) to GDP.
Country coverage: 214 countries
Time coverage: 1960–2017
Frequency: Annual

6. “Sovereign Defaults: The Price of Haircuts”

Authors: Juan Cruces and Christoph Trebesch
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/christophtrebesch/data
Description: This database provides a list of restructuring events of public and publicly-
guaranteed debt owed to foreign private creditors. Among the most important variables, the
database contains debt restructure; preferred haircut; market haircut; face value reduction;
and bond exchange. Also, the authors provide haircut estimates and further information on
each arrangement.
Notes for researchers: The selection of restructuring cases is based on five criteria:
(1) Public or publicly-guaranteed debt restructurings; (2) restructurings with foreign private
creditors are included; (3) distressed debt exchanges; (4) medium- and long-term
restructurings; and (5) restructurings that are implemented.
Country coverage: 72 countries (all countries that restructured debt)
Time coverage: 1970–2013
Frequency: Date of occurrence

7. “US Federal Debt 1776–1960: Quantities and Price”

Authors: George Hall, Jonathan Payne and Thomas Sargent
Website: https://github.com/jepayne/US-Federal-Debt-Public
Description: This database provides prices, quantities, and descriptions of all securities
issued by the US Treasury between 1776 and 1960. It contains descriptions of every
individual Treasure bonds and notes; times series data on the quantity outstanding for each
bond and times series data on the market price for each bond.
Notes for researchers: Data is released on github with some basic instructions on how to
use them in python. More detailed description is available at:
http://www.tomsargent.com/research/ReadMe_Pub.pdf
 11

Country coverage: United States

Time coverage: 1776–1960
Frequency: Monthly

8. “Public Debt around the World: A New Dataset of Central Government Debt”
Authors: Dany Jaimovich, and Ugo Panizza
Website: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504850701719785
Description: This database presents a complete series of central government debt for eighty-
nine countries including all the major economies except the Eastern European Transition
States over the 1991–2005 period and for seven other countries for the 1993–2005 period.
Notes for researchers: In this database, public debt is defined as gross central government
debt. Although, most of the data is from official sources, due to different fiscal centralization
level, the exact reporting standard can still vary from country to country.
Country coverage: 96 countries
Time coverage: 1991–2005
Frequency: Annual (partially covered)

9. “Government Debt in Emerging Market Countries: A New Data Set”

Authors: Olivier Jeanne and Anastasia Guscina
Website: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2016/12/31/Government-Debt-in-
Emerging-Market-Countries-A-New-Data-Set-18923 (contact AGuscina@imf.org for data)
Description: This database provides extensive information related to the size and structure of
central government debt. This information is divided into domestic and foreign debt by
jurisdiction of issuance. Domestic debt is decomposed by maturity at issuance (short-term,
medium-term, or long-term), fixed or variable interest rate; local currency or foreign
currency, nominal or CPI-indexed. Foreign debt is decomposed by private creditors or
official creditors. Finally, the share of FX debt (and USD in particular) in foreign debt is also
included.
Notes for researchers: The data only covers central government debt due to the difficulties
of finding state-owned enterprise or local government debt. Also, the domestic debt of
central banks is, for the most part, not included since the number is small. The definition of
domestic debt is domestically issued debt in this database, and international debt means debt
issued overseas.
Country coverage: 19 emerging countries
Time coverage: 1980–2013
Frequency: Annual

10. “Systemic and Idiosyncratic Sovereign Debt Crises—Database”

Authors: Graciela Kaminsky and Pablo Vega-García
 12

Website: https://www.gracielakaminsky.com/databases
Description: The authors compiled information for six data series: exports (in British
pounds), terms of trade (1900=100), international issuance relative to U.K. export trend,
world imports (in British pounds), U.K. real interest rate, and debt service relative to the
U.K. export trend.
Notes for researchers: The database captures data from 1800 to 1960, and data are
presented in British pounds. Researchers should notice that Argentina, Brazil, and Chile
started reporting export data since the early nineteenth century. But export data for
Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and Uruguay are derived by using mirrored data of their main
trading partners in the nineteenth century.
Country coverage: 7 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and
Uruguay)
Time coverage: 1800–1960 (partially covered)
Frequency: Annual

11. “A Modern History of Fiscal Prudence and Profligacy,” IMF Working Paper No.
13/5, International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC
Authors: Paolo Mauro, Rafael Romeu, Ariel Binder and Asad Zaman
Website: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2016/12/31/A-Modern-History-of-
Fiscal-Prudence-and-Profligacy-40222
Description: This database provides very long time series on various fiscal variables for a
wide range of countries. It covers not only public debt stock but also the related fiscal
balance and its subcomponents. Specifically, the dataset includes fiscal revenues, primary
expenditures, government debt, interest paid on public debt and gross domestic product for
fifty-five countries and for up to two hundred years. About half of the data came from
publicly available cross-country sources such as IMF’s World Economic Outlook,
International Financial Statistics, OECD Analytical Database, the Statistical Yearbooks of
the League of Nations, Montevideo-Oxford Latin American Database, and some previous
work done by Marc Flandreau, Frèdèric Zumer and Brian Mitchell. The other half of the data
is collected from country-specific sources.
Notes for researchers: Coverage of the government sector varies from country to country
mainly due to data limitations. The site reports at general government level where data was
available. However, in most cases, general government data is difficult to collect for earlier
years. In that sense, most observations before the 1960s cover only central government and
latter switched to general government. Structural breaks are expected generally in the 1960s
and 1970s. Those breaks are recorded in dummy variables.
Country coverage: 55 countries (24 advanced economies and 31 emerging and low-income
economies)
Time coverage: 1800–2011
Frequency: Annual
 13

12. “Bruegel Database of Sovereign Bond Holdings”

Authors: Silvia Merler and Jean Pisani-Ferry
Website: http://bruegel.org/publications/datasets/sovereign-bond-holdings/
Description: This database reports the quarterly and annually sovereign bond holding
(resident banks, non-residents) as a share of total sovereign bond holdings across twelve
European countries and the United States.
Notes for researchers: The database covers the sectorial holding of sovereign bonds for
Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain,
United Kingdom, and United States. Quarterly data are available from 1997 to 2017. And the
data are standardized and reclassified based on five categories (banks, central banks, public
institutions, other resident sectors, and non-resident holders). The primary source of the data
is the ECB, and national sources are used when data is not available in the ECB.
Country coverage: 12 European countries and the United States
Time coverage: 1995–2017
Frequency: Quarterly data from December 1997 to March 2017. Annual data from 1995 to
2016.

13. “Domestic and External Public Debt in Developing Countries”

Authors: Ugo Panizza
Website: http://debt-and-finance.unctad.org/Documents/Discussion-
papers/Domestic_and_External_Public_Debt_in_Developing_Countries_PANIZZA_2008.pd
f (contact the authors for data)
Description: This database provides data on total public debt (external and domestic). Public
debt data is collected from different sources and liabilities included in the definition might
differ across countries. Public sector definition and liabilities differ across countries.
Notes for researchers: The database covers 130 countries from 1990 to 2007, but 2006 and
2007 data are either forecasts or preliminary estimates. As a result, the coverage is weak in
these two years. The author used the central government debt in most cases, but general
government and nonfinancial public sector debt data is used when the central government
data is not available.
Country coverage: 130 countries
Time coverage: 1990–2007
Frequency: Annual

14. “Domestic Debt in Low-income Countries”

Authors: Andrea F. Presbitero
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/presbitero/homepage/data
 14

Description: This database provides data on the stock of domestic public debt, collected
from various previous works. It covers forty-four low-income countries for the period 1970–
2010.
Notes for researchers: The exact definition of domestic debt is very burly. In most cases, it
is defined as the total public debt subtracted by public external debt. But the exact definition
can vary based on data sources.
Country coverage: 44 low-income countries
Time coverage: 1970–2010
Frequency: Annual

15. “Dates for Banking Crises, Currency Crashes, Sovereign Domestic or External
Default (or Restructuring), Inflation Crises, and Stock Market Crashes (Varieties)”
Authors: Carmen M. Reinhart
Website: http://www.carmenreinhart.com/data/browse-by-topic/topics/7/
Description: This database includes five series data for a variety of financial crises: currency
crisis, inflation crisis, stock market crisis, sovereign domestic debt crisis, sovereign external
debt crisis, and banking crisis. Stock market crashes are included for a smaller set of
countries subject to equity price data availability. Finally, the author includes two data series:
a yearly tally of crises “varieties” and a dummy variable indicating the year of independence
(if applicable). This database is an extension of Reinhart and Rogoff’s earlier work published
in 2008 “This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crisis”
https://www.nber.org/papers/w13882.
Notes for researchers: The database covers crises varieties from 1800 to 2010. Please note
that Stock Market Crashes are blank when there are no stock prices in time series. Also, the
year of independence is included in the database, if the country went independent before
1800, the whole series will be a column of 1s.
Country coverage: 70 countries
Time coverage: 1800–2010
Frequency: Annual

16. “Debt-to-GDP Ratios”

Authors: Carmen M. Reinhart
Website: http://www.carmenreinhart.com/data/browse-by-topic/topics/9/
Description: The information covers annual data from as early as 1692 for the U.K. and
1719 for Sweden (depending on the country) to 2010 (updated with the World Bank’s July
2010 Quarterly External Debt Statistics and individual mostly official country sources, as
detailed for public debt). Each country has its own page with the underlying data from
multiple sources (with their corresponding full bibliographical references). This source
(partially) includes external gross central government debt/exports, total (domestic plus
 15

external) gross central government debt/GDP, total (domestic plus external) gross general
government debt/GDP, and total (public plus private) gross external debt/GDP.
Notes for Researchers: The coverage of debt data varies from country to country due to data
availability. The data source of each year has been included in the database and the
compositions of the debt data for each country are also included in the database. Please
notice that most of the data series are in percentage to GDP, but there are some series
reported in percentage to GNP. This database extends the database extensively documented
in Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff’s 2008 paper “This Time is Different: A Panoramic
View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crisis,” https://www.nber.org/papers/w13882. This
paper, and their later 2009 book This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly,
both contain extensive discussion of previously unexploited resources that allowed, for the
first time, the construction of long-dated public debt series which had previously been
available only for a few countries. Reinhart and Rogoff use their debt data series in “The
Forgotten History of Domestic Debt,” https://www.nber.org/papers/w13946, (later published
with minor revisions in 2011 in the Economic Journal, 121 (552), pp. 319–50), as well as in
their 2011 paper, Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, “From Financial Crash to Debt
Crisis,” American Economic Review, 101, 1676–706.
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/rogoff/files/from_financial_crash.pdf. Importantly, that
paper also posted the debt to GDP time series
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/rogoff/files/53_data_0.xls. The data had earlier been posted
in 2010. The data set is also used in Carmen M. Reinhart, Vincent R. Reinhart, and Kenneth
S. Rogoff, 2012. “Public Debt Overhangs: Advanced-Economy Episodes since 1800,”
Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26 (3), pp. 69–86.
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.26.3.69. The data, including not only
debt/GDP Data going back to 1800 but associated interest rate series, is found at
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.26.3.69. Finally, a very early nascent
version of the Reinhart–Rogoff debt database is employed in Carmen Reinhart, Kenneth
Rogoff, and Miguel A. Savastano, 2003. “Debt Intolerance,” Brookings Papers on Economic
Activity, 1: 1–74. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/rogoff/files/51_bpea2003.pdf.
Country coverage: 70 countries
Time coverage: 1692–2010 (partial coverage)
Frequency: Annual

17. “This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly” (Princeton University
Press, 2009)
Authors: Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff
Website: http://www.reinhartandrogoff.com/data/
Description: The database contains twelve datasets that authors prepared in the publication.
It includes world crises indices, crises, debt to GDP ratios, exchange rates, gold standard
dates, inflation, silver-based exchange rates, and other related datasets.
Notes for Researchers: This data source also provides all tables, figures, and raw data for
the publication. The majority of the data series are updated to 2017. Importantly, the
 16

appendix to the 2009 book contains extensive discussion and documentation of sources to
facilitate replication and extension.
Country coverage: Varies by dataset
Time coverage: 1800–2017 (Varies by dataset)
Frequency: Annual

18. “Managing the UK National Debt 1694–2018”

Authors: Andrew Scott
Website: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~exet2581/data/data.html
Description: The author compiled a bond-by-bond dataset for every individual bond issued
by U.K. government. It provides monthly data series on quantity and market price for each
bond from 1694 to 2018. For more details, please refer to the working paper available at:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~exet2581/wp/AEJMacro-2018-0263.R1_Ellison_Scott_manuscript.pdf
Country coverage: United Kingdom
Time coverage: 1694–2018
Frequency: Monthly

B. Institutional Databases

19. “Debt Securities”

Authors: Bank for International Settlements
Website: https://www.bis.org/statistics/secstats.htm?m=6%7C33%7C615
Description: This database covers borrowing activities in debt capital markets. Table C1
provides a summary of debt securities outstanding by sector (financial corporations, non-
financial corporations, and general government) and residence (international/domestic
markets). Table C2 provides more information on central government debt securities
markets, broken down by instrument and maturity. Table C3 is a set of country tables which
give the most detailed view on debt securities. It provides data series on net flows and
amount outstanding by residence, sector, currency, instrument, and maturity.
Country coverage: Global (157 countries for table C1 and C3, 30 countries for table C2)
Time coverage: 1952–present (partial coverage from 1952 to 1970; better coverage after
1970)
Frequency: Quarterly

20. “Sovereign Default”

Authors: Bank of Canada
Website: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2018/07/staff-working-paper-2018-30/
 17

Description: In order to measure the sovereign debt in default, the Bank of Canada has
developed a comprehensive database of sovereign defaults. This database includes the total
debt in default by creditor (IMF, IBRD, Paris Club, private creditors, FC bank loans, FC
bonds, LC debts) and by debtor (advanced economies, emerging/frontier markets, HIPC
countries).
Country coverage: 145 countries
Time coverage: 1960–2017
Frequency: Annual

21. “Debt securities issuance and service by EU government”

Authors: European Central Bank (ECB)
Website: http://sdw.ecb.europa.eu/reports.do?node=1000003848
Description: This report provides debt securities issuance and service statistics for the euro
area and individual EU Member States. Data is further broken down by maturity, interest rate
type (Fixed/Floating) and currency denomination (Euro/USD/GBP). More detailed security-
by-security information is also available in the “Centralized Securities Database”
(https://sdw.ecb.europa.eu/browseExplanation.do?org.apache.struts.taglib.html.TOKEN=63c
99637c7e920605bc134df7c4ba161&df=true&ec=&dc=&oc=&pb=&rc=&DATASET=0&re
moveItem=&removedItemList=&mergeFilter=&activeTab=SHS&showHide=&MAX_DOW
NLOAD_SERIES=500&SERIES_MAX_NUM=50&node=9691594)
Country coverage: 28 EU countries
Time coverage: 2016–Present
Frequency: Annual; Quarterly/Monthly data available from 2018

22. “Living with Debt: How to Limit Risks of Sovereign Finance?”

Authors: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
Website: https://data.iadb.org/Datacatalog/Dataset#DataCatalogID=7cm5-ndt4
Description: This database reports, in percent of GDP, primary deficit, interest payments,
gross public debt, domestic public debt, external public debt (broken down further official
and private creditors). It also reports, as a share of gross public debt, debt denominated in
foreign currency and local currency.
Country coverage: 26 Latin-American countries
Time coverage: 1980–2013
Frequency: Annual (partial coverage)

23. “Standardized Public Debt Database”

Authors: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
Website: https://data.iadb.org/Datacatalog/Dataset#DataCatalogID=3bvi-edbq
 18

Description: This database contains more than 190 public debt-related series. Among the
more important variables are debt maturity, bank loans, debt issued in foreign/domestic
currency, exchange rates, external/internal legislation debt, etc.
Notes for researchers: The time coverage of the database is from 2006 to 2016, but 2006–
08 data are annual data, and semi-annual data are available from 2009 to 2016.
Country coverage: 26 Latin-American countries
Time coverage: 2H2006–2H2016
Frequency: Semi-annual

24. “Fiscal Monitor (FM)”

Authors: International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Website: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/FM/Issues/2019/03/18/fiscal-monitor-april-
2019
Description: The Fiscal Monitor surveys and analyzes the latest public finance
developments. It updates fiscal implications of the crisis and medium-term fiscal projections
and assesses policies to put public finances on a sustainable footing. This database provides
country specific data and projections for key fiscal variables (including public gross
financing needs on table 1.3 and table 1.4). More data series are available from table A4 to
table A25. More historical data are available from IMF Data Mapper
(https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/datasets/FM)
Country coverage: 115 countries (partial coverage based on data availability from country
desks)
Time coverage: 2010–Present
Frequency: Annual

25. “Global Debt Database”

Authors: Samba Mbaye, Marialuz Moreno Badia, and Kyungla Chae, International
Monetary Fund
Website: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2018/05/14/Global-Debt-
Database-Methodology-and-Sources-45838
Description: The database covers 190 countries worldwide, including advanced economies
emerging markets economies, and low-income countries and contains total gross debt
information on private, household, non-financial corporate, central government, general
government, non-financial public sector, and public sector.
Notes for Researchers: The coverage of debt data varies from country to country due to data
availability. For certain sectors, such as the private sector, researchers have the flexibility to
pursue for a longer time series (with a narrower definition which only includes debt securities
and loans) or a wider definition of debt (includes all instruments) but with shorter time series.
Country coverage: 190 countries
 19

Time coverage: 1950–2017 (partially covered); updated annually with lag T+12
Frequency: Annual

26. “International Financial Statistics (IFS)”

Authors: International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Website: https://data.imf.org/?sk=4C514D48-B6BA-49ED-8AB9-52B0C1A0179B
Description: IFS provides several high-level debt related data series, namely: overall
external debt (stock and flow); overall debt position by sector (government; central bank;
depository corporations; other depository corporations; other financial corporations;
nonfinancial corporations). Some high-level debt holder information is also available for
certain countries. (e.g., central bank liabilities to other depository corporations). But data
availability varies by country.
Country coverage: Global (most IMF member countries)
Time coverage: 2000–Present
Frequency: Annual/Quarterly/Monthly

27. “Public Sector Balance Sheet (PSBS)”

Authors: International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Website: https://data.imf.org/psbs
Description: This database provides comprehensive estimates of public sector assets and
liabilities for 38 countries. This database is compiled largely based on IMF’s Government
Finance Statistics database and Monetary and Financial Statistics database. Where these data
fail to cover all categories of assets and liabilities, they are complemented by other data
reported by statistical authorities at the national level, other international organization or staff
estimates. Data is reported in both national currency and percent of GDP.
Country coverage: 38 countries
Time coverage: 2000–Present
Frequency: Annual

28. “World Economic Outlook (WEO)”

Authors: International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Website: https://www.imf.org/external/ns/cs.aspx?id=28
Description: WEO provides several overall public debt related data series, namely: general
government gross debt (by domestic currency/foreign currency); general government debt
service; general government gross debt as a percent of fiscal year GDP; general government
net debt; general government net debt as a percent of fiscal year GDP. WEO only provides
high-level government debt data. It does not have further information on private debt, debt
holder information, etc.
Country coverage: Global (most IMF member countries)
 20

Time coverage: 1980–present (Partial coverage from 1980 to 2000; most countries covered
after 2000)
Frequency: Annual

29. “General Government Debt”

Authors: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Website: https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-debt.htm
Description: This database provides data series on general government debt-to-GDP ratio. It
also covers a wider range of data series on government finance, such as spending (by
central/general government), revenue, deficit, production cost.
Country coverage: OECD countries
Time coverage: 1995–2017
Frequency: Annual

30. “International Debt Statistics (IDS)”

Authors: World Bank (WB)
Website: https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/dataset/international-debt-statistics
Description: IDS is one of the most detailed databases concerning about external debt. It
includes over 200 time series. It provides detailed information on debt outstanding, debt
service, currency composition, creditors, terms, interest, amortization, arrears, etc. It provides
a relatively comprehensive picture of countries’ external debt with a very granular level of
breakdowns. Other than debt data, IDS also includes data series about balance of payment
and major financial indicators.
Notes for researchers: This database has a focus on emerging and low-income countries;
most advanced countries are missing from this database. This database also does not have
any information on domestic debt.
Country coverage: 121 (mostly low- and middle-income countries)
Time coverage: 1970–2016
Frequency: Annual

31. “Quarterly External Debt Statistics (QEDS)”

Authors: World Bank (WB) & International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Website: http://datatopics.worldbank.org/debt/qeds;
http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=quarterly-external-debt-
statistics/sdds-(new)
Description: This database aims to provide quarterly data on breakdowns of the total gross
external debt position by sector, maturity, and instrument. Classifications and definitions are
in line with the Guide for Compilers and Users (2013 EDS Guide) and Sixth Edition of
Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual (BPM6). Data are
 21

published individually by countries that subscribe to the IMF’s Special Data Dissemination
Standard (SDDS). Other than the core set of data series, countries are also encouraged to
provide data on domestic-foreign currency breakdown; forward debt service schedule, and
principal and interest payments due in one year or less. But coverage for those data series
varies by country.
Country coverage: 40 developing and low-income countries
Time coverage: 1998Q1–Present
Frequency: Quarterly

32. “Quarterly Public Sector Debt (QPSD)”

Authors: World Bank (WB) & International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Website: https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/dataset/quarterly-public-sector-debt
Description: This database aims to provide detailed quarterly data on breakdowns of public
sector debt position by sector (General government; Central government; Budgetary central
government; Nonfinancial public corporations and Financial public corporations), maturity
and instrument. The database is updated quarterly and within one month of the end of a
quarter. The participation of countries in this centralized database is voluntary and data
coverage varies by country.
Country coverage: 40 developing and low-income countries
Time coverage: 1995Q1–Present
Frequency: Quarterly