Credit to the Public Sector

Credit to the Public Sector is the stock of credit provided by depository institutions to the central government, local governments, and public enterprises, denominated in local or foreign currency. It is a key money-and-banking indicator of how the financial system finances government and the public sector. This Credit to the Public Sector series is part of the Latin Macro Watch (LMW) database maintained by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) on data.iadb.org, giving economists, fiscal analysts, and journalists a harmonized view of public credit across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Coverage

The series spans 21 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean at annual, monthly, and quarterly frequency, covering the period 1990–2026. Values are available in many forms — as % of GDP, % of M2, or % of total credit; in constant prices (CPI-deflated); in millions of USD or domestic currency; and seasonally adjusted — each reported as an average of period or end of period. Moving averages (MA3, MA6, MA12) and month-on-month (MoM %), quarter-on-quarter (QoQ %), and year-on-year (YoY %) transformations support trend analysis.

Sources

Data are compiled from official central banks and supervisory authorities, including Banco Central do Brasil, Banco Central de Chile, Banco de Mexico (Banxico), Superintendencia de Bancos de Panama, and The Central Bank of Belize. The IDB standardizes these national sources into a comparable cross-country dataset.

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Format	CSV
Language	en
Country	Argentina Bahamas Trinidad & Tobago Belize Costa Rica Dominican Republic Ecuador Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia El Salvador Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Panama Uruguay Venezuela Barbados Paraguay Peru Suriname
Data notes	What does the Credit to the Public Sector indicator measure? It measures the stock of credit provided by depository institutions to the central government, local governments, and public enterprises, denominated in local or foreign currency. How many countries and which frequencies and period are covered? The series covers 21 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean at annual, monthly, and quarterly frequency, over the period 1990–2026. What units and transformations are available? Values are available as % of GDP, % of M2, or % of total credit; in constant prices (CPI-deflated); in millions of USD or domestic currency; and seasonally adjusted, each as an average or end of period. Moving averages (MA3, MA6, MA12) and MoM %, QoQ %, and YoY % transformations are also provided. Where does the data come from? Data are compiled by the IDB from official central banks and supervisory authorities, such as Banco Central do Brasil, Banco Central de Chile, Banco de Mexico (Banxico), Superintendencia de Bancos de Panama, and The Central Bank of Belize. What is this indicator typically used for? Analysts use public-sector credit to monitor government financing through the banking system, assess crowding-out of private credit, track fiscal-financial linkages, and compare public credit across Latin American and Caribbean economies. How do I cite this indicator? Cite it as: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Latin Macro Watch — "Credit to the Public Sector". data.iadb.org/dataset/latin-macro-watch-dataset.