The Persistency of Public Debt

Konferenzbeitrag

This paper shows that geographic patterns in public debt can be highly persistent despite drastic external shocks. I compare pre-Nazi debt in 60 districts and 132 large cities of the German Reich with current local government debt. German local government debt completely defaulted after WWII. I find that 1932 and 2012 debt is highly correlated in cities which saw a re-installation of their pre-Nazi mayor by the Allies in 1945. Comparable cities without personnel continuity do not exhibit a robust correlation. Intertemporal personnel links thus constitute a main channel through which to explain long-term persistency in public finance.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2016: Demographischer Wandel - Session: The Social Aspects of Fiscal Policy ; No. D10-V2

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; National Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt ; State and Local Borrowing ; Regional and Urban History: Europe: 1913-

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Rösel, Felix
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft
• (where): Kiel und Hamburg
• (when): 2016

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/145595
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET