Hidden Debt Revelations

We received valuable comments from Fernando Arce, Tamon Asonuma, Gadi Barlevy, Volker Clausen, Aitor Erce, Stelios Fourakis, Juan Carlos Hatchondo, Aart Kraay, Leonardo Martinez, Julian Martinez-Iriarte, Marti Mestieri, Ugo Panizza, Juan Passadore, Carmen Reinhart, Diego Rivetti, Juan Sanchez, Zachary Stangebye, and Christoph Trebesch as well as from seminar participants at the Kiel Institute, the Inter-American Development Bank, the University of Duisburg-Essen, the Ruhr Graduate School in Economics, the World Bank, the University of Rochester, the University of Michigan, Purdue University, the Chicago Fed, the Richmond Fed, the 2024 NBER IFM Spring Meeting, the 2023 SED Annual Meeting and the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Verein für Socialpolitik. We thank Evis Rucaj and the entire team of the World Bank Development Data Group for answering countless questions on the International Debt Statistics. Gregor Ilsinger and Robert Remy provided excellent research assistance. We thank the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and the German Federal Ministry of Finance for their financial support. All views expressed in this paper are those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.