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Sea transport. Seaports --- Environmental planning --- History of Antwerp --- Scheldepolders

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Financiën [Openbare ] --- België

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The purpose of this dissertation is to provide a general insight into the reduction of government debt. We identify the main components that influence debt dynamics and describe how they affect debt reduction. Our empirical analysis is twofold. First, we decompose 138 government debt reduction episodes that occurred between 1870 and 2011 using an extensive dataset for 56 advanced and emerging economies. Second, we estimate a logistic regression model to analyze how several macroeconomic and fiscal variables have contributed to debt reduction success. To define the success of a debt reduction episode, we use the total reduction of the debt ratio. Several factors are found to be critical. The primary balance needs to improve and the improvement needs to be sustained during the debt reduction. Lower interest rates significantly improve success and length, possibly indicating the importance of accommodative monetary policy. The importance of real GDP growth is not confirmed by our analysis. We find evidence indicating that higher growth during the debt reduction can be success-reducing. Higher inflation contributes significantly to success for advanced countries, but not for emerging countries. Lastly, the presence of a debt crisis significantly increases the probability of success by creating a sense of urgency and pressure to act, particularly for emerging countries.