Domestic public debt in low-income countries: trends and structure

This paper introduces a new dataset on the stock and structure of domestic debt in 36 Low-Income Countries over the period 1971-2011. We characterize the recent trends regarding LICs domestic public debt and explore the relevance of different arguments put forward on the benefits and costs of govern...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc
Main Authors Bua, Giovanna, Pradelli, Juan, Presbitero, Andrea Filippo
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis 01.01.2013
Subjects
Low income groups
Trends
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Summary:This paper introduces a new dataset on the stock and structure of domestic debt in 36 Low-Income Countries over the period 1971-2011. We characterize the recent trends regarding LICs domestic public debt and explore the relevance of different arguments put forward on the benefits and costs of government borrowing in local public debt markets. The main stylized fact emerging from the data is the increase in domestic government debt since 1996. We also observe that poor countries have been able to increase the share of long-term instruments over time and that the maturity lengthening went together with a decrease in borrowing costs. However, the concentration of the investor base, mainly dominated by commercial banks and the Central Bank, may crowd out lending to the private sector.