Public Debt, Investment, and Growth: The DIG and DIGNAR Models (DIGx)

Source details

Canonical URL: Public Debt, Investment, and Growth: The DIG and DIGNAR Models (DIGx)

Some knowledge of economics is helpful.
Basic Microsoft Excel skills are helpful.
Access to a computer with a reliable internet connection and a Google Chrome web browser is essential.

All government officials are welcome to register.
Particularly useful for officials from:
- ministries of finance
- debt agencies
- central banks
- other government agencies responsible for providing advice or implementing macroeconomic and debt policies

The online course is presented by the Institute for Capacity Development and the Research Department.
Purpose: Explain how to analyze the relation between public investment, growth, and public debt dynamics using two dynamic structural models:
- the Debt, Investment, and Growth (DIG) model
- the Debt, Investment, Growth and Natural Resources (DIGNAR) model
Key pieces of these models covered:
- the investment-growth nexus
- the fiscal adjustment
- the private sector response
Topics and factors elaborated:
- macroeconomic effects of public investment scaling-up plans, including on growth and debt dynamics
- type of fiscal financing
- rate of return of public capital
- efficiency of public investment
- capacity of governments to mobilize revenues
Empirical uptake and applications:
- Over the past decade, the DIG and DIGNAR models have gained wide acceptance for policy work.
- They have complemented the analyses done with the IMF and World Bank Debt Sustainability Framework, with over 65 country applications in the context of Fund-supported programs and surveillance work.
- Model applications have informed policy analysis on:
- public investment surges
- fiscal consolidations
- cash transfers to poor households
- mix of public current and capital expenditures
- efficiency of public spending and tax administration
- collapse of commodity prices
- The course illustrates some of these applications and explains how to interpret the output of policy scenario analyses.

Upon completion of the course, participants should be able to:

Understand the basics of dynamic macroeconomic models for analyzing public investment scale-ups, growth, and debt dynamics.
Understand the key elements of the DIG and the DIGNAR models.
Understand how these models are used to analyze how the macroeconomic effects of public investment surges depend on:
- policy responses
- the type of financing of these surges (e.g., taxes and domestic versus external financing)
- structural factors (e.g., the efficiency of public investment)
Interpret the output of policy scenario analyses using the DIG and DIGNAR models, as reflected in official IMF documents such as Article IV reports.