The choice made by governments to cope with high public debts may therefore be better explained from a political economy perspective: the specific interests and relative political strength of different constituencies may definitely matter in such a choice.
This approach can also help to explain the historically observed phenomenon that some countries are more likely to default than others; 3 to cite just one example, Argentina has defaulted three times since 1980. Moreover, most debt repudiation episodes in these defaultprone countries happened at what we would today consider relatively low levels of debt.