Testing explosive behavior of public debt in OECD countries.

This paper examines the beginning and end of potentially speculative explosive public debt patterns occurring in 29 major OECD countries. The method we use is most appropriate for practical implementation with a time series and delivers a consistent date-stamping strategy for the origination and termination of multiple explosive behaviors. Our results also test that most OECD countries, except for Israel, Luxembourg, and Turkey, have experienced periods of explosive public debt. The stationarity of public debt varies by country. Approximately two-thirds of the explosive periods occurred prior to 2012. Based on the scale, structure, and safety of government debt for dynamic monitoring and evaluation, governments can improve risk management measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]