02135cas a2200313 a 4500 AALejournalIMF021698 230101c9999 xx r poo 0 0eng d 5.00 USD 9781513582511 1018-5941 BD-DhAAL BD-DhAAL Barrett, Philip. Parameterizing Debt Maturity / Philip Barrett, Christopher Johns. Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2021. 1 online resource (74 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 This paper examines ways to summarize the maturity structure of public debts using a small number of parameters. We compile a novel dataset of all promised future payments for US and UK government debt from every month since 1869, and more recently for Peru, Poland, Egypt, and Nigeria. We show that there is a unique parametric form which does not arbitrarily restrict debt issuance - portfolios of bonds with exponential coupons. Compared to the most popular alternative, this form 1) more accurately describes changes in debt maturity for these six countries and 2) gives a quite different interpretation of historical debt maturity. Our work can be applied not just to analyze past debt movements, but - because parameter estimates are relatively similar across countries - also for monitoring changes in debt maturity, including in countries where data are partial or incomplete. Mode of access: Internet Debt imf Foreign Exchange imf General Financial Markets imf Informal Economy imf Underground Econom imf Johns, Christopher. IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2021/101 Full text available on IMF http://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2021/101/001.2021.issue-101-en.xml IMF e-Library