IMF Working Papers

The Legal Foundations of Public Debt Transparency: Aligning the Law with Good Practices

By Karla Vasquez, Alissa Ashcroft, Alessandro Gullo, Olya Kroytor, Yan Liu, Mia Pineda, Ron Snipeliski

February 9, 2024

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Karla Vasquez, Alissa Ashcroft, Alessandro Gullo, Olya Kroytor, Yan Liu, Mia Pineda, and Ron Snipeliski. "The Legal Foundations of Public Debt Transparency: Aligning the Law with Good Practices", IMF Working Papers 2024, 029 (2025), accessed November 21, 2024, https://doi.org/10.5089/9798400267222.001

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Disclaimer: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

Debt opacity burdens the public and can exacerbate debt vulnerabilities in many countries. Both low-income and developing countries and emerging market economies have critical gaps in debt transparency, and the implementation of international standards and guidelines has lagged. The paper surveys the legal frameworks of sixty jurisdictions and reveals the critical weaknesses that hinder debt transparency, which include weak reporting obligations, limited coverage of public debt, inadequate monitoring, unclear borrowing and delegation processes, unfettered confidentiality arrangements and weak accountability mechanisms. Because laws entrench practices and bind the discretion of policy makers and debt managers alike, subjecting them to public scrutiny, legal reform is a necessary part of any solution to the problem of hidden debt, though it may entail a difficult and time intensive process in many jurisdictions.

Subject: Asset and liability management, Debt management, Financial institutions, Government debt management, Public debt, Public financial management (PFM), Securities

Keywords: Address debt vulnerability, Asia and Pacific, Debt bulletin, Debt management, Debt manager, Debt opacity, Debt Registry, Debt transparency, Disclosure, Global, Government debt management, Legal institutions, Middle East and Central Asia, Securities, Sovereign debt, Statistics guide, Transparency

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