Forms the continuation of work begun at the time of the Brussels financial conference, the last memorandum of the kind having been published in 1923. Comprises the reviews of the financial position of 26 countries. cf. Guide to the documents of the [International economic] conference.
As Europe proceeds towards economic and monetary union, fiscal convergence and the prospect of a common money are at the centre of discussion. This volume from the Centre for Economic Policy Research brings together theoretical, applied and historical research on the management of public debt and its implications for financial stability.
We construct a new, comprehensive instrument-level database of sovereign debt for 18 advanced and emerging countries over the period 1913–46. The database contains data on amounts outstanding for some 3,800 individual debt instruments as well as associated qualitative information, including instrument type, coupon rate, maturity, and currency of issue. This information can provide unique insights into various policies implemented in the interwar period, which was characterized by notoriously high debt levels. We document how interwar governments rolled over debts that were largely unsustainable and how the external public debt network contributed to the collapse of the international financial system in the early 1930s.