In this article, we review the empirical literature about sovereign debt and default. As we survey the work of economists, historians, and political scientists, we also emphasize parallel developments by theorists and recommend steps to improve the correspondence between theory and data.

The stock of sovereign debt is typically measured at face value. Defined as the undiscounted sum of future principal repayments, face values are misleading when debts are issued with different contractual forms or maturities. In this paper, we construct alternative measures of the stock of...

Why do firm growth and exit rates decline with size? What determines the size distribution of firms and plants? This paper addresses these questions in a dynamic model of firm size with entry and exit that emphasizes the accumulation of specific factors in response to industry specific...