This paper analyses the original Reinhart-Rogoff dataset, made public by Herndon et al. (2013), on the basis of descriptive statistics and formal econometric testing. First, based on the public debt thresholds (30%, 60% and 90%) proposed by Reinhart and Rogoff (2010), descriptive statistics reveal that real GDP growth slows considerably as the central government debt-to-GDP ratio goes beyond the 30% threshold and that no further slowdown can be observed in the data as the debt-to-GDP ratio rises above 60% and 90% during the periods 1790-2009 and 1946-2009. For the United States (1946-2009), the negative nonlinear finding completely disappears for any level of public debt, once reverse causality and influential outliers are accounted for. Looking at general (and central) government debt during the more recent period of 1960-2009 suggests that economic slowdown occurs when public debt moves above 60% or 90% of GDP. But it seems more appropriate to determine nonlinearity and the associated debt threshold endogenously. [...]