The impact of national debt on economic growth

The purpose of the paper is to explore the relationship between accumulating public debt stocks and medium/ long run economic growth. This paper also intends to test and differentiate the threshold effect of public debt on economic growth among advanced economies and emerging markets. By analyzing 34 advanced and emerging economies during the period from 1980 to 2010, the study confirms the negative association between high levels of public debt and economic growth but there is a lack of strong evidence that the turning point from which debt starts to have a deleterious impact on growth varies on a regional basis.