Abstract :
Because of the 2008 global economic crisis, debt levels of the developed countries have increased in the recent years. So, it is very crucial to be understood how economic development indicators affect the government debt levels. The purpose of this article is to examine these effects. In order to accomplish this analysis, data of 11 developed countries (Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Norway, Spain and United Kingdom) over the period 1980-2011 are used. Panel Cointegration method is employed to determine the impacts of GDP per capita, gross national savings, gross government total expenditure, gross government revenue and unemployment variables on the general government gross debt. The results of the panel cointegration analysis show that all of the variables analyzed have impacts on the gross government debt and the gross government total expenditure has the largest impact.
