We show that sovereign debt is unsustainable if debt contracts are not supported by direct sanctions and default carries only a ban from ever borrowing in financial markets even in the presence of uninsurable risks and time-varying interest rate. This extension of Bulow and Rogoff, 1989 requires...

The paper aims to present some risks and consequences of the indebtedness of an economy. The article is based on the results of a research project and it describes the negative effects of a high level of indebtedness of an economy, the elements that influence the risks of an economy's...

We show that debt is sustainable at a competitive equilibrium based solely on the reputation for repayment; that is, even without collateral or legal sanctions available to creditors. In an incomplete asset market, when the rate of interest falls recurrently below the rate of growth of the...

The paper proposes an operational definition of safe public debt levels and discusses various concrete approaches to calculate them. A public debt level is considered safe if it is associated with a low probability of reaching levels likely to generate significant economic costs within a given...

The article presents some risks of external debt in Romania generated by its structure and characteristics. Given the rise in the share of short-term external debt, the associated risks increase, among which there is the augmentation in the volatility of the exchange rate of the national...

This chapter reviews the literature on intergenerational risk sharing (IRS). We explore to what extent and how a market economy with an appropriate institutional setting can replicate a social planner's solution in models with increasing levels of complexity. In particular, we do this for...