Government Debt ManagementFundamentals, practical issues and recent developments

Government debt management has recently seen a considerable surge in interest. In Europe the introduction of the common currency, the delegation of monetary policy from national central banks to the ECB, and the disappearance of exchange rate risk have led policy makers to rethink government debt policies and the institutional... read moreframework of government debt management. Increasingly government debt management is delegated to specialized institutions, which are situated outside ministries of finance and central banks. In emerging markets the macroeconomic stabilisation in many countries, the increased interest of investors, and the discussions around debt relief also led to a re-evaluation of government debt management. In the academic literature government debt management has been a relatively little researched topic when compared to fiscal or monetary policy. However, there are early signs that this might be about to change.

This series of talks addresses a range of important issues in government debt management. After an overview of the recent developments, the next two talks consider the issues of government debt management from an academic and a practical perspective. We then turn to the specific developments in the Euro-zone and in emerging markets, both of which have seen a number of changes in recent times. Next we look at a range of practical issues in government debt management: the institutional structures, available debt instruments and their modelling, the issuance methods of these instruments, and performance measurement. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the market for government debt instruments and its relation to the government debt manager.