IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/16108.html

Worse Than You Think: Public Debt Forecast Errors in Advanced and Developing Economies

Author

Listed:
  • Ostry, Jonathan D.
  • Estefania Flores, Julia
  • Furceri, Davide
  • Kothari, Siddharth

Abstract

We compile a unique dataset of medium-term public debt forecasts for an unbalanced panel of 174 countries, based on IMF (for the period 1995–2020) and Economist Intelligence Unit (2007–20) projections. We find that on average: (i) there is a positive forecast error (FE) in the debt-to-GDP projections—that is, realized debt ratios are larger than forecasts; (ii) the FE increases with the projection horizon and is statistically significant and large—about 10 percent of GDP at the five-year horizon; (iii) the magnitude is similar between advanced (AEs) and emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs), and in EMDEs is present irrespective of recessions while for AEs is associated with surprise recessions in the forecast horizon; (iv) FEs are not statistically different between IMF program and non-program cases; (v) positive FEs are only partly attributable to optimism about growth; and (vi) oil-exporters and more volatile countries tend to have larger FEs. If FEs following the COVID crisis are in line with those that followed the Global Financial Crisis, average debt ratios in EMDEs would increase to close to 73 percent of GDP by 2025 instead of declining to 63 percent of GDP as currently forecast.

Suggested Citation

  • Ostry, Jonathan D. & Estefania Flores, Julia & Furceri, Davide & Kothari, Siddharth, 2021. "Worse Than You Think: Public Debt Forecast Errors in Advanced and Developing Economies," CEPR Discussion Papers 16108, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:16108
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP16108
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lorenti, A.Nicolás & Mora-Ruano, Rubén & Fernández Romero, Daniel & Angoitia Grijalba, Miguel, 2025. "Fiscal Forecast Errors in the Eurozone: The Influence of Independent Fiscal Institutions (IFIs) and Monetary Policy," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 254(3), pages 119-156, September.
    2. M. Ayhan Kose & Peter Nagle & Franziska Ohnsorge & Naotaka Sugawara, 2021. "What has been the impact of COVID-19 on debt? Turning a wave into a tsunami," CAMA Working Papers 2021-99, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    3. Sebastián Horn & David Mihaly & Philipp Nickol & César Sosa-Padilla, 2024. "Hidden Debt Revelations," Working Papers 338, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    4. Andrián, Leandro & Hirs-Garzon, Jorge & Urrea, Ivan Leonardo & Valencia, Oscar, 2024. "Fiscal rules and economic cycles: Quality (always) Matters," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    5. Cronin, David & McQuinn, Kieran, 2023. "Government debt forecast errors and the net expenditure rule in EU countries: Undue optimism at a cost," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 45(6), pages 1113-1131.
    6. Belen Chocobar & Peter Claeys & Marcos Poplawski‐Ribeiro, 2025. "Fiscal Forecasting Rationality Among Expert Forecasters," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(3), pages 941-959, April.
    7. Cronin, David & McGowan, Kieran, 2023. "Government debt forecast errors and the net expenditure rule in EU countries," Papers WP756, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    8. Amelie BARBIER-GAUCHARD & Emmanouil SOFIANOS, 2024. "Forecasting Public Debt in the Euro Area Using Machine Learning: Decision Tools for Financial Markets," Working Papers of BETA 2024-47, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    9. Bachleitner, Alena & Prammer, Doris, 2024. "Don’t blame the government!? An assessment of debt forecast errors with a view to the EU Economic Governance Review," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    10. Idrees, Muhammad, 2025. "Debt Dynamics and Economic Growth," MPRA Paper 125658, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Antoine Gaudin & Brendan Harnoys Vannier & Martin Kessler, 2024. "A Critical Analysis of DSA Projections," Development, Palgrave Macmillan;Society for International Deveopment, vol. 67(3), pages 233-247, December.
    12. Brandao-Marques, Luis & Casiraghi, Marco & Gelos, Gaston & Harrison, Olamide & Kamber, Gunes, 2024. "Is high debt Constraining monetary policy? evidence from inflation expectations," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
    • H68 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Forecasts of Budgets, Deficits, and Debt

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:16108. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.