S. M. Ali Abbas, Laura Blattner, Mark De Broeck, Asmaa El-Ganainy and Malin Hu report in Vox about their debt structure database spanning the period 1900–2011 and covering Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the US. Data is disaggregated along the following dimensions: Currency; maturity (of local currency debt); marketability; holders (non-residents, national central bank, domestic commercial banks, rest).

Their main findings are:

• Advanced economies’ debt typically was denominated in local currency, with the exception of post-WWI France and Italy.
• Governments issued longer-dated paper in good times.
• The share of central government debt that was issued in the form of marketable securities declined until after World War II and increased again in the 1970s, to around 80% today.
• National central banks and domestic commercial banks held about 30% of the debt until 1970. Afterwards, non-resident participation in sovereign debt markets soared.
• Large increases in debt often were accompanied by a rise of short-term, foreign currency-denominated debt held by the banking system, with the exception of the 1980s and 1990s where more long-term local-currency marketable debt was issued.
• Evidence for financial repression in combination with inflation after World War II.

They suggest that countries mainly followed two strategies to reduce debt quotas. One, based on fiscal consolidation and moderate inflation, going hand in hand with long maturities. The other, based on high inflation and reliance on debt holdings by captive domestic investors, going hand in hand with shorter maturities.

Link to the data.