H60 - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt: GeneralReturn

The paper aims to test the research hypothesis of whether more democratic and economically developed countries tend to have higher public debts (the “Three-D-Relationship”) or not. The hypothesis was tested on a panel of 91 countries over the period from 2012 to 2016 using a two way analysis of variance where debt was the dependent variable and regime type and income levels were factors. The results only partially confirmed the hypothesis. Higher democratic standards did correlate with higher debt levels. Similarly, higher income levels also correlated with bigger debt burden. Both “democracy” and “development” combined was not linked to higher debt levels.