The Relationship between the Public Debt and Economic Growth: An Analysis of PIIGS Countries

T he financial crisis that was started in the last months of 2008, spread out to all world countries in short-term and had broken out as public debt in the European Union and Euro area. Most affected countries from this financial crisis had been Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain were named as PIIGS countries of Europe. The effect of public debt on economic growth had been analyzed for PIIGS countries in this study. First, cross-sectional dependency and homogeneity tests had been performed for variables. The existence of cointegration between series had been analyzed by cointegration test with a multi-structural break is developed by Westerlund (2009). While cross-sectional dependency has been determined for general of the panel at the result of the analysis made, it has been seen that series are not stationary in the level and they become stationary when their first differences are taken. In addition, it had been found that there is cointegration between series at the result of cointegration that considers structural breaks.