Projecting Public Debt - The Public Debt Dynamics Tool

Source details

Target Audience:
- All government officials are welcome to register.
- Particularly useful for officials from ministries of finance, debt agencies, central banks, and other government agencies responsible for implementing macroeconomic and debt policies.
Qualifications:
- Some knowledge of economics would be helpful.
- Basic Microsoft Excel skills and access to a computer with a reliable internet connection and a Google Chrome web browser are essential.

Overview:
- Presented by the Institute for Capacity Development.
- Explains how to project the evolution of the stock of public debt over time for the baseline (most likely) and alternative scenarios.
- Explains how to estimate paths of fiscal adjustments consistent with a pre-determined target level of debt.
Public Debt Dynamics Tool (DDT) features:
- Excel-based, easy-to-use.
- Uses projections of some 10 key macroeconomic and fiscal variables.
- Provides public debt projections under baseline and stress test scenarios.
- Produces fan charts that describe uncertainty.
- Identifies the main drivers of public debt changes.
- Computes measures of fiscal adjustments necessary to achieve a user-defined public debt target.

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

Project public debt.
Identify the main drivers of public debt changes.
Compute measures of fiscal adjustments consistent with a public debt target.
Conduct a stress test to public debt projections, including through the use of fan charts.
Identify the main components of a debt sustainability analysis to assess the risk of debt distress.