01781cas a2200265 a 4500 AALejournalIMF017176 230101c9999 xx r poo 0 0eng d 5.00 USD 9781475545043 1018-5941 BD-DhAAL BD-DhAAL Jaramillo, Laura. The Blind Side of Public Debt Spikes / Laura Jaramillo, Carlos Mulas-Granados, Elijah Kimani. Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2016. 1 online resource (32 pages) IMF Working Papers <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students What explains public debt spikes since the end of WWII? To answer this question, this paper identifies 179 debt spike episodes from 1945 to 2014 across advanced and developing countries. We find that debt spikes are not rare events and their probability increases with time. We then show that large public debt spikes are neither driven by high primary deficits nor by output declines but instead by sizable stock-flow adjustments (SFAs). We also find that SFAs are poorly forecasted, which can affect debt sustainability analyses, and are associated with a higher probability of suffering non-declining debt paths in the aftermath of public debt spikes. Mode of access: Internet Kimani, Elijah. Mulas-Granados, Carlos. IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2016/202 Full text available on IMF http://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2016/202/001.2016.issue-202-en.xml IMF e-Library