I construct a database that maps the timing of sovereign default decisions into elected politicians' terms of office, that provides an empirical means of investigating political economy theories of sovereign default. I find no robust patterns in the timing of default decisions over terms of...

This paper empirically investigates the impact of changes in US real interest rates on sovereign default risk in emerging economies using the method of identification through heteroskedasticity. Policy-induced increases in US interest rates starkly raise default risk in emerging market...