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...

Cross-country bank lending mushroomed over the past decade. This helped to spread risks but also meant that international banks were more vulnerable than previously to shocks from abroad including from each other. Following the outbreak of the US sub-prime crisis, and especially after the...