IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/62570.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Assessing public debt sustainability in EU member states:a guide

Author

Listed:
  • Carone, Giuseppe
  • Berti, Katia

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the methodological approach used by the Commission services (DG ECFIN/C2) to carry out, in a systematic and harmonised way, public debt sustainability analysis (DSA) for EU Member States. Analysing recent and prospective public debt developments and risks to debt sustainability is crucial for EA countries and the EU as a whole to be able to formulate appropriate policy responses. To this aim, the Commission services (DG ECFIN) prepare on a regular basis (twice a year, following autumn and spring Commission forecasts) an internal "Debt Sustainability Monitor" report (DSM) presenting, for each Member State, a detailed public debt sustainability analysis, accompanied by the analysis of fiscal sustainability indicators. The DSM provides key information for regular budgetary surveillance. The assessment of Member States' debt developments is indeed a key component of fiscal surveillance under the Stability and Growth Pact, the European semester and the Europe 2020 strategy. Public debt dynamics is analysed in the DSM through traditional (deterministic) debt projections, accompanied by sensitivity analysis, and stochastic debt projections. Brand new tools have also been introduced in the DSA framework with the aim of ensuring a more comprehensive assessment of risks to public debt sustainability (capturing risks arising, for instance, from the structure of public debt financing and from governments' contingent liabilities). Other new tools have been introduced to make it possible to assess the realism of underlying macroeconomic assumptions. Main features of the renewed Commission's DSA framework are the following: 1) Criteria are used to identify "vulnerable" countries from the point of view of public debt sustainability. For the latter, the DSA is "enhanced" with a detailed write-up, in which the macro-fiscal assumptions used in the projections are illustrated and debt projection results, and risks to debt sustainability more broadly, are discussed. 2) The framework is designed in a way to allow for a comprehensive assessment of risks to public debt sustainability. Sensitivity analysis around baseline public debt projections, for instance, is extensive, covering downside and upside risks to the main macro-fiscal determinants of debt dynamics (possibly emerging from fiscal fatigue, tightening/relaxing of governments' financing conditions on the markets, shocks to GDP growth, inflation and the exchange rate, bank-related contingent liability shocks). 3) Variables capturing risks potentially arising from the structure of public debt (public debt by maturity, holder, currency of denomination) are integrated in the DSA through heat maps, thus usefully complementing the analysis of risks related to the projected public debt dynamics. 4) The analysis of governments' contingent liabilities features prominently in the DSA framework. An overview of overall contingent liabilities for the public sector is provided based on most recent data on state guarantees. Contingent liability risks arising from the banking sector are captured indirectly through heat maps of variables that measure banking sector vulnerabilities, as well as through estimates of the probability of bank losses hitting public finances in a simulated bank crisis. 5) Commission forecast accuracy analysis on the main macro-fiscal determinants of public debt dynamics (real GDP growth, primary balance and inflation) is included in the DSA. This analysis aims at providing some indication on whether forecasts, incorporated in baseline public debt projections, tend to be systematically biased in one direction or the other in a sign of persistent optimism or pessimism. The paper provides an accurate description of the new Commission – DG ECFIN's DSA framework, and all the analytical and reporting tools it encompasses.

Suggested Citation

  • Carone, Giuseppe & Berti, Katia, 2014. "Assessing public debt sustainability in EU member states:a guide," MPRA Paper 62570, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:62570
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/62570/1/MPRA_paper_62570.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carmen M. Reinhart & Graciela L. Kaminsky, 1999. "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 473-500, June.
    2. Graciela Kaminsky & Saul Lizondo & Carmen M. Reinhart, 1998. "Leading Indicators of Currency Crises," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 45(1), pages 1-48, March.
    3. Miss Gabriela Dobrescu & Iva Petrova & Nazim Belhocine & Mr. Emanuele Baldacci, 2011. "Assessing Fiscal Stress," IMF Working Papers 2011/100, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Laura Gonzalez Cabanillas & Alessio Terzi, 2012. "The accuracy of the European Commission's forecasts re-examined," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 476, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    5. Pierre Beynet & Edouard Paviot, 2012. "Assessing the Sensitivity of Hungarian Debt Sustainability to Macroeconomic Shocks under Two Fiscal Policy Reactions," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 946, OECD Publishing.
    6. Mr. E. H. Gardner & Mr. Julian Di Giovanni, 2008. "A Simple Stochastic Approach to Debt Sustainability Applied to Lebanon," IMF Working Papers 2008/097, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Riccardo Lisa & Stefano Zedda & Francesco Vallascas & Francesca Campolongo & Massimo Marchesi, 2011. "Modelling Deposit Insurance Scheme Losses in a Basel 2 Framework," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 123-141, December.
    8. Katia Berti, 2013. "Stochastic public debt projections using the historical variance-covariance matrix approach for EU countries," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 480, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    9. Katia Berti & Matteo Salto & Matthieu Lequien, 2012. "An early-detection index of fiscal stress for EU countries," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 475, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Boysen-Hogrefe, Jens & Fiedler, Salomon & Gern, Klaus-Jürgen & Groll, Dominik & Jannsen, Nils & Kooths, Stefan, 2021. "Vermögenspreise, Zinseffekte und die Robustheit der öffentlichen Finanzen in Deutschland - eine Szenario-Analyse," Kieler Beiträge zur Wirtschaftspolitik 36, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tagkalakis, Athanasios O., 2014. "Financial stability indicators and public debt developments," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 158-179.
    2. Honda, Jiro & Tapsoba, René & Issifou, Ismael, 2022. "When do we repair the roof? Insights from responses to fiscal crisis early warning signals," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 349-367.
    3. Barbara Jarmulska, 2022. "Random forest versus logit models: Which offers better early warning of fiscal stress?," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(3), pages 455-490, April.
    4. Martin Bruns & Tigran Poghosyan, 2018. "Leading indicators of fiscal distress: evidence from extreme bounds analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(13), pages 1454-1478, March.
    5. Mikkel Hermansen & Oliver Röhn, 2017. "Economic resilience: The usefulness of early warning indicators in OECD countries," OECD Journal: Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2016(1), pages 9-35.
    6. Tagkalakis, Athanasios, 2013. "The effects of financial crisis on fiscal positions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 197-213.
    7. Camelia Minoiu & Chanhyun Kang & V.S. Subrahmanian & Anamaria Berea, 2015. "Does financial connectedness predict crises?," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 607-624, April.
    8. Andreea Stoian & Laura Obreja Brașoveanu & Iulian Viorel Brașoveanu & Bogdan Dumitrescu, 2018. "A Framework to Assess Fiscal Vulnerability: Empirical Evidence for European Union Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-20, July.
    9. Turrini, Alessandro & Zeugner, Stefan, 2019. "Benchmarks for net international investment positions," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 149-164.
    10. Ms. Anna Kochanova & Carlos Caceres, 2012. "Country Stress Events: Does Governance Matter?," IMF Working Papers 2012/116, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Ms. Era Dabla-Norris & Yasemin Bal Gündüz, 2012. "Exogenous Shocks and Growth Crises in Low-Income Countries: A Vulnerability Index," IMF Working Papers 2012/264, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Dabla-Norris, Era & Bal Gündüz, Yasemin, 2014. "Exogenous Shocks and Growth Crises in Low-Income Countries: A Vulnerability Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 360-378.
    13. Rudolf Alvise Lennkh & Edmund Moshammer & Vilém Valenta, 2017. "A Comprehensive Scorecard for Assessing Sovereign Vulnerabilities," Working Papers 23, European Stability Mechanism.
    14. Carmen M. Reinhart, 2002. "Default, Currency Crises, and Sovereign Credit Ratings," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 16(2), pages 151-170, August.
    15. Jerome L. Stein & Giovanna Paladino, 1999. "Exchange Rate Misalignments and Crises," CESifo Working Paper Series 205, CESifo.
    16. Glick, Reuven & Hutchison, Michael, 2005. "Capital controls and exchange rate instability in developing economies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 387-412, April.
    17. Thanh C. Nguyen & Vítor Castro & Justine Wood, 2022. "Political environment and financial crises," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 417-438, January.
    18. Prof.Dr. Cevat GERNI & Doc.Dr. O. Selcuk EMSEN & Dr. M. Kemal DEGER, 2005. "Erken Uyari Sistemlerý Yoluyla Turkiye’Deki Ekonomik Krizlerin Analizi," Istanbul University Econometrics and Statistics e-Journal, Department of Econometrics, Faculty of Economics, Istanbul University, vol. 2(1), pages 39-62, November.
    19. Stijn Claessens & M. Ayhan Kose, 2013. "Financial Crises: Explanations, Types and Implications," CAMA Working Papers 2013-06, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    20. Jean-Charles Bricongne & Leonor Coutinho & Alessandro Turrini & Stefan Zeugner, 2020. "Is Private Debt Excessive?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 471-512, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Debt; sustainability; fiscal; fiscal risk; debt projection;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus
    • 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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:62570. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.