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 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...

Using linked employer-employee data combined with administrative data on debt enforcement, we analyze the impact of job loss on debt problems in Finland, where even 50% of income may be subject to wage garnishment for up to 25 years. Our results show that job loss, defined by plant closures and...

Countries around the world are introducing or improving their personal insolvency regimes, but frequently the effects of these reforms are not evaluated, and the reforms themselves are not supported by adequate data analysis. This paper proposes the establishment and implementation of data...

I develop a banking model with monopolistic competition to analyze the effect of reserve rate policy on bank insolvency risk, when banks are constrained by a zero lower bound on deposit rates. When binding, the lower bound compresses the solvency relevant deposit spread and causes it to be a...