TY - JOUR AU - Missale, Alessandro AU - Giavazzi, Francesco AU - Benigno, Pierpaolo TI - Managing the Public Debt in Fiscal Stabilizations: The Evidence JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 6311 PY - 1997 Y2 - December 1997 DO - 10.3386/w6311 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6311 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6311.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Alessandro Missale Dip. di Economica Politica e Aziendale Via Conservatorio 7 20122 Milano, Italy E-Mail: alessandro.missale@unimi.it Francesco Giavazzi Universita' Bocconi and IGIER Via Guglielmo Röntgen, 1 Milan 20136 ITALY Tel: 0039-02-5836-3304 Fax: 0039-02-5836-3302 E-Mail: francesco.giavazzi@unibocconi.it Pierpaolo Benigno Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza Luiss Guido Carli Viale Romania 32 00197 Rome ITALY Tel: 39-0685225-552 E-Mail: pbenigno@luiss.it AB - This paper provides evidence on the behavior of public debt managers during fiscal" stabilizations in OECD countries over the last two decades. We find that debt maturity tends to" lengthen the more credible the program, the lower the long-term interest rate and the higher the" volatility of short-term interest rates. We show that this debt issuing strategy is consistent with" optimal debt management if information between the government and private investors is" asymmetric, as is usually the case at the outset of a stabilization attempt when private investors" may lack full confidence in the announced budget cuts. ER -