Insights Using the Public Finances in Modern History Database: Evolution of Government Gross Debt, Interest Expense, Primary Expenditure, Total Expenditure, and Revenue Around the World

We use the Public Finances in Modern History Database assembled by Paolo Mauro, Rafael Romeu, Ariel J Binder and Asad Zaman to analyze the evolution of key public finance variables over time. Fiscal variables include government gross debt, interest expense, primary expenditure, total expenditure, and revenue, all as percentage of GDP. Using the whole database, Panel data regressions show that government […]