---
name: fiscal-external-vulnerability
description: Assess fiscal and external macroeconomic vulnerabilities using debt, balances, rates, trade, and exchange-rate data.
---

# Fiscal and external vulnerability

Read [analysis and presentation practices](../../references/analysis-presentation.md)
and [dataset selection](../../references/dataset-selection.md) before beginning.

Use for sovereign-risk context, debt sustainability signals, twin-deficit
questions, and external-pressure screening. This is macro analysis, not a credit
rating or investment recommendation.

Use WED for the current position and GMD for long-run regimes or crisis context.
Resolve indicators rather than guessing, prefer comparable ratios, preserve
actual/forecast distinctions, and disclose coverage gaps.

## Workflow

1. Select debt and fiscal balance as shares of GDP where available. Add current
   account, exchange rate, interest rates, exports, and imports when relevant.
2. Check coverage before constructing the assessment; do not treat absent
   reserves, maturity, or financing-composition data as benign conditions.
3. Examine levels, direction, persistence, and joint deterioration. Use WED for
   the current position and GMD for historical regimes or crisis context.
4. When a visual adds value, render only the most decision-relevant trends with
   the host-native visualization capability.
5. Label forecasts and keep measured vulnerability signals separate from
   unobserved institutional, maturity, liquidity, and political factors.

Return the principal strengths, vulnerabilities, direction of travel, evidence,
and missing information that could change the assessment.