Protests and fiscal crises often coincide, with complex causal dynamics at play. We examine the interaction between tax revolts and sovereign risk using a quantitative structural model calibrated to Argentina during the Macri administration (2015-2019). In the model, the government can be...

We study sovereign external debt crises over the past 200 years, with a focus on creditor losses, or "haircuts". Our sample covers 327 sovereign debt restructurings with external private creditors over 205 default spells since 1815. Creditor losses vary widely (from none to 100%), but the...

We study a model in which policy aims at aggregate price stability. A fiscal imbalance materializes that, if uncorrected, must cause inflation, but the imbalance may get corrected in the future with some probability. By maintaining price stability in the near term, monetary policy can buy time...

The feedback loop between sovereign and financial sector insolvency has been identified as a key driver of the European debt crisis and has motivated an array of policy proposals. We revisit this "doom loop" focusing on governments' incentives to default. To this end, we present a simple...

Theory suggests that corporate and sovereign bonds are fundamentally different, also because sovereign debt has no bankruptcy mechanism and is hard to enforce. We show empirically that the two assets are more similar than you think, at least when it comes to high-yield bonds over the past 20...

Theory suggests that corporate and sovereign bonds are fundamentally different, also because sovereign debt has no bankruptcy mechanism and is hard to enforce. We show empirically that the two assets are more similar than you think, at least when it comes to high-yield bonds over the past 20...

We document that creditor losses ("haircuts") during sovereign debt restructurings vary across debt maturity. In our novel dataset on instrument-specific haircuts suffered by private creditors in 1999-2020 we find larger losses on short- than long-term debt, independently of the specific haircut...

This paper surveys recent economic and legal literature on sovereign debt in light of the COVID-19 shock. Most of the core theoretical contributions we review across the two disciplines hinge on immunity, and the sovereign borrower's consequent inability to commit to repay foreign creditors, as...

This paper proposes a quantitative theory of the interaction between private and public debt in an open economy. Excessive private debt increases the frequency of financial crises. During such crises the government provides fiscal bailouts financed with risky public debt. This response may cause...

We review the state of the sovereign debt literature and point out that the canonical model of sovereign debt cannot be easily reconciled with several facts about sovereign debt pricing and servicing. We identify and classify twenty puzzles. Some are well known and documented, others are less so...

Capital and its sectoral allocation affect default incentives. Under general assumptions, default risk is decreasing in the total stock of capital and increasing in the share of capital allocated to non-tradable production. This implies that when competitive households make all investment...

We develop a sovereign default model with debt renegotiation in which interest-rate shocks affect default incentives through two mechanisms. The first is the standard mechanism through which higher rates tighten the budget constraint. The second rests on how risk-free rates affect lenders'...

I study how, in the presence of default risk, the Dutch disease amplifies an inefficiency in the sectoral allocation of capital. I develop a sovereign default model with production of tradable and non-tradable goods, and endowments of commodities. Default incentives increase when more capital is...

Using microdata from a U.S. household survey, we document that immigrants who lived through a sovereign default episode are 7% less likely to hold debt relative to otherwise similar immigrants who reside in the same U.S. state and come from the same foreign country but who did not experience a...

We study sovereign external debt crises over the past 200 years, with a focus on creditor losses, or "haircuts". Our sample covers 327 sovereign debt restructurings with external private creditors over 205 default spells since 1815. Creditor losses vary widely (from none to 100%), but the...

Protests and fiscal crises often coincide, with complex causal dynamics at play. We examine the interaction between tax revolts and sovereign risk using a quantitative structural model calibrated to Argentina during the Macri administration (2015-2019). In the model, the government can be...

The Global Emerging Markets Risk Database (GEMs) Consortium was established in 2009 as a joint initiative between the European Investment Bank and the International Finance Corporation to pool credit risk data. The GEMs database is designed to support technical cooperation between international...

Many sovereign defaults have occurred worldwide over the past 200 years. An analysis of 321 sovereign debt restructurings since 1815 shows that foreign private and institutional investor losses were 43 percent on average. Notably, beginning in the 1970s, several debt exchanges have increasingly...

Sovereigns issue debt on both domestic and foreign markets and the two debts are uncorrelated in the data. Sovereigns default mostly selectively. We propose a theory to rationalize these observations. A government chooses the optimal combination of two debts to smooth consumption, which is...

We present a theory of determinants of sovereign debt stability on foreign and domestic markets. Besides the two traditional factors - debt size and output contractions, we highlight the role of the third factor: distortionary tax, which hinders the government’s ability to freely raise...

China has become a major player in sovereign lending towards Africa during the past two decades but has recently been faced with increasing defaults. A new African debt crisis is looming. • Differences in the motives of sovereign lending between China and Western creditor countries contribute...

This paper delves into the dynamic impact of Ecuador's 2008 sovereign debt default on the subsequent performance of the country's bonds, specifically as measured by the Emerging Markets Bond Index (EMBI). Through a blend of qualitative and quantitative analyses, the paper develops a framework...

Theory suggests that corporate and sovereign bonds are fundamentally different, also because sovereign debt has no bankruptcy mechanism and is hard to enforce. We show empirically that the two assets are more similar than you think, at least when it comes to high-yield bonds over the past 20...

Between 2009 and 2015 Greece underwent a profound sovereign debt crisis that led to a serious political crisis in Europe and the restructuring of Greek debt. We argue that the prevalence of negative narratives about the future contributed to the changes in spreads of Greek bonds during the...