RDP 9405: External Debt and Liabilities of Industrial Countries 5. Conclusion

This paper provides international investment position statistics for the industrial countries in a consistent framework, to enable the comparison of external debt for those countries. It attempts to fully exploit the available national source data in the construction of these measures. The increased emphasis that the IMF has put on international investment position statistics in its most recent Balance of Payments Manual is likely to lead to further improvements in these data. As a result, the accuracy of cross-country comparisons is likely to improve over time.