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Wars and various burning of bondholders (mostly by the government buying up debt at market price and cancelling it) dominate until the post-war era. Post-war I don't know. The decrease in debt/gdp around 1945 and 1960 appears rather sharp but perhaps it is just increasing GDP, can't find anything about bonds written down. The last debt peak around is at least the bank crisis of the early 90ies with austerity and introduction of mass unemployment. Then follows a decrease in debt/GDP as a result of a mercantilistic policy of wage depression and a debt reduction target. Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
Another interesting thing to note is how much of the debt is the governments debt to its central bank. Post war this goes up from around 5% just after the war to about 30% in 1970 and then declines to 0 in 2001. This could reflect the decrease and increase in bond holders power, at it is in their interest that the governmetn does not borrow from the CB, but instead the CB borrows to bondholders who borrows to the government.
Speaking of politics, I found the dramatic 50% decrease in 1779 in the excel sheet. In 1778 the CB holds 50% of the government debt, in 1779 this appears to have been written of as the debt is halfed, the govenremtn does not own the CB anything and there is a major seignorage loss (which is how I guess the CB balanced the books). This is in the same time as Gustav III's Russian war, though I fail to find any details. Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
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