Keywords Fiscal policy; Sovereign debt; Fiscal deficit; Private debt Highlights * Presents a comprehensive cross-country database of fiscal space for up to 202 countries since 1990. * 30 indicators of fiscal space in the database are grouped into four categories: government debt sustainability, balance sheet composition, external and private sector debt, and market perception. * Documents the weakening of fiscal space in the 1990s, the broad-based improvement over the next decade, and the synchronized deterioration over the subsequent decade heading into the global recession of 2020. * Analyzes the behavior of fiscal space during a wide range of adverse events. * The results show that some of these events coincide with a lasting deterioration in fiscal space whereas others tend to have short-lived consequences. Abstract This paper presents a comprehensive cross-country database of fiscal space, broadly defined as the availability of budgetary resources for a government to service its financial obligations. The database covers up to 202 countries over the period 1990--2020, and includes 30 indicators of fiscal space grouped into four categories: debt sustainability, balance sheet vulnerability, external and private sector debt-related risks as potential causes of contingent liabilities, and market access. Using the database, the paper, first, documents the weakening of fiscal space in the 1990s, the broad-based improvement over the first decade of the 2000s, and the synchronized deterioration over the subsequent decade heading into the global recession of 2020. Second, it analyzes the behavior of fiscal space during a wide range of adverse events, including banking crises, natural disasters, and wars. The results show that some of these events coincide with a lasting deterioration in fiscal space whereas others tend to have at most short-lived consequences for fiscal space. Author Affiliation: (a) World Bank, Brookings Institution, CEPR, CAMA, United States (b) World Bank, CEPR, CAMA, United States (c) World Bank, United States * Corresponding author. (footnote) Kurlat was a consultant at the World Bank when the early analysis was conducted for this study. We would like to thank Mark Spiegel and three anonymous referees for their detailed suggestions, Carlos Arteta, Eduardo Borenzstein, Kevin Clinton, Raphael Espinoza, Raju Huidrom, Anna Ivanova, Ugo Panizza, Evis Rucaj, Marc Stocker, Carlos Végh, Dana Vorisek and seminar participants at the World Bank for valuable comments, and Graeme Littler and Praveen Penmetsa for developing the database web interface. Shijie Shi and Xinghao Gong provided excellent research assistance. The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed to the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. The database is periodically updated and available at http://www.worldbank.org/en/research/brief/fiscal-space (http://www.worldbank.org/en/research/brief/fiscal-space). (footnote)1 Independent. Byline: M. Ayhan Kose [akose@worldbank.org] (a), Sergio Kurlat (1), Franziska Ohnsorge [fohnsorge@worldbank.org] (b), Naotaka Sugawara [nsugawara@worldbank.org] (c,*)