We calculate investor losses ("haircuts") and recovery values in recent debt restructurings in Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan, Ecuador, Argentina, and Uruguay. Haircuts are computed as the percentage difference between the present values of old and new instruments, discounted at the yield prevailing...

Popular perception is that emerging market economies (EMEs), and Asian Pacific Rim countries—China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam (RIMs)—in particular, have been rapidly accumulating reserves, perhaps beyond what is justified by precautionary motives. This...

We examine how membership in a currency union affects public debt sustainability and market assessments of default risk in eurozone countries. We argue that there exist offsetting effects: expectations of bailouts tend to make a given level of debt more sustainable, lowering bond yields and CDS...

Has the US dollar delivered the benefits that the rest of the world is expecting from its holdings of international liquidity? US government debt has been liquid and safe, and it is supplied in sufficient quantity. But it has given a low return to the countries that accumulated the most...