Public debt has increased steadily over the years, leaving many countries at risk of debt distress and even pushing some to default. This paper analyses the impact of sovereign default on post-default debtto-GDP ratios in 144 countries from 1980 to 2019. Applying the entropy balancing method, we...

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...

Political crises often coincide with fiscal crises, with complex causal dynamics at play. We examine the interaction between tax revolts and sovereign risk using a quantitative structural model calibrated to Argentina. In the model, the government can be controlled by political parties with...

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...

Political risk is a significant determinant of bond yields and economic growth in both developed and emerging markets and we develop a debt sustainability analysis model with both channels using a country ratings proxy of political risk. Political risk also affects a sovereign's willingness to...

We examine the 2025 U.S. debt limit episode through the lens of financial markets. First, we document an increase in trading activity in the U.S. sovereign CDS market, and we infer a probability of default from CDS premiums. We find that default risk reached 1% by the November 6 Presidential...

Political crises often coincide with fiscal crises, with complex causal dynamics at play. We examine the interaction between tax revolts and sovereign risk using a quantitative structural model calibrated to Argentina. In the model, the government can be controlled by political parties with...

This paper is the first comprehensive analysis of the secured lending practices of Chinese creditors in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). We present a new dataset and detailed case studies of collateralized public and publicly guaranteed (PPG) loans from Chinese state-owned...

Public debt has increased steadily over the years, leaving many countries at risk of debt distress and even pushing some to default. This paper analyses the impact of sovereign default on post-default debtto-GDP ratios in 144 countries from 1980 to 2019. Applying the entropy balancing method, we...

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of China’s lending to developing countries - a central feature of today’s international financial system. Building on our previous research and the work of others, we document the scale, destination, and terms of China’s overseas lending boom,...

The Global Emerging Markets Risk Database Consortium (GEMs) is a joint initiative between the European Investment Bank and the International Finance Corporation; it was established in 2009 to pool credit risk data. This database is a unique example of a tangible common good and is designed to...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...