Public debt sustainability in resource-rich countries with access to capital markets: The case of Peru

Abstract

This paper examines the relevance of economic growth, currency depreciation, cost of public financing, inflation, and export prices on the sustainability of Peru’s public debt. The measurements correspond to different specifications of autoregressive vectors (VAR) models applied to macro-fiscal data from 1999-2018. The results validate the relevance of all the factors for the short, medium, and long term. Furthermore, these results suggest that future macro-fiscal policy measures should aim to continue actions to improve the public debt profile and diversify fiscal revenues, in order to reduce the vulnerability of fiscal sustainability due to unfavorable changes in export prices.