Financial Crises: Explanations, Types, and Implications; by Stijn Claessens and M. Ayhan Kose; imf working Paper 13/28; January 1, 2013

Domestic debt crises  are more difficult to identify. First, consistent historical data on 

domestic public debt across countries was missing, at least until recently. Furthermore, 

following a crisis, unrecorded debt obligations can come to light. However, Abbas et al 

(2011) and Reinhart and Rogoff (2009a) have since made significant progress in putting 

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together historical series on (domestic) debt. Second, countries can default in many ways: 

outright direct defaults; periods of hyper- or high inflation; punitive taxation of interest 

payments; forced interest rate or principal adjustments or conversions; gold clause 

abrogation; debasing of currency; and forms of financial repression. Reinhart and Rogoff 

(2009a) describe these and make clear that there remains considerable ambiguity in 

classifications of defaults, especially of “inflation-related default” episodes.