Statistical Definition (Dippelsman et al.)

What lies beneath: The statistical definition of public sector debt – An overview of the coverage of public sector debt for 61 countries by Robert Dippelsman, Claudia Dziobek and Carlos A. G. Mangas published by IMF. “As this paper shows, the absence of the standard nomenclature can lead to major misunderstandings in the fiscal policy debate. The authors present examples that show that debt-to-GDP rations for a country at any given time can range from 40 to over 100 percent depending on the definition used…The authors suggest that gross debt of the general government (_gross debt) should be globally adopted as the headline indicator supplemented by other measures of government debt for risk-based assessments of the fiscal position.”