We investigate, using plant-level data for 79 developed and developing countries, whether differences in the allocation of resources across heterogeneous plants are a significant determinant of cross-country differences in income per worker. For this purpose, we use a standard version of the...

Recurrent concerns over debt sustainability in emerging and developed nations have prompted renewed debate on the role of fiscal rules. Their optimality, however, remains unclear. We provide a quantitative analysis of fiscal rules in a standard model of sovereign debt accumulation and default...

In the past decade, foreign participation in local-currency bond markets in emerging countries has increased dramatically. We revisit sovereign debt sustainability under the assumptions that countries can borrow internationally using their own currencies and accumulate reserves. As opposed to...

In this paper we review the literature on sovereign debt with particular emphasis on indexation and maturity and the main policy proposals related to these topics. We also advance some implications derived from our work. In Alfaro and Kanczuk (2005a, b, c), we modeled sovereign debt as a...

In the past decade, foreign participation in local-currency bond markets in emerging countries has increased dramatically. We revisit sovereign debt sustainability under the assumptions that countries can borrow internationally using their own currencies and accumulate reserves. As opposed to...