Twenty years after the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief initiative, debt levels in low-income countries are rising again, renewing sustainability concerns. The prevailing view suggests that China and other emerging lenders exploited the HIPC initiative to expand lending. Using...

Purpose - This study examines the effect of external debt and domestic capital formation on economic development in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) economies. Design/methodology/approach - Using the Dynamic Common Correlation Effects (DCCE) technique and the Driscoll and Kraay fixed-effect technique,...

Being indebted represents significant risks associated with global financial instability in a world where financial stability hangs precariously between debt and economic growth. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) casts a critical eye over countries navigating the perilous seas of fiscal...

Theory suggests that corporate and sovereign bonds are fundamentally different, also because sovereign debt has no bankruptcy mechanism and is hard to enforce. We show empirically that the two assets are more similar than you think, at least when it comes to high-yield bonds over the past 20...

Theory suggests that corporate and sovereign bonds are fundamentally different, also because sovereign debt has no bankruptcy mechanism and is hard to enforce. We show empirically that the two assets are more similar than you think, at least when it comes to high-yield bonds over the past 20...

Many countries are still struggling with high and rising debt levels. The economic impact of the pandemic, as well as some longer-term structural factors, explain this situation. The key problem is the high level of debt service relative to government revenues, which makes it difficult to...

The paper quantifies the impact of the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war on sovereign bond yields for 58 countries. Our findings based on event study methodology and multivariate cross-sectional regression analysis highlight the salient role of trade channel in shaping the markets' reaction to...

This study addresses the challenge of sovereign external debt sustainability by employing a cointegration test, machine-learning classifiers, and explainable models. Focusing on 22 middle-income countries during the period 2000-2021, our study aims to provide accurate insights into debt...

This study highlights the role of political leadership in external debt management by translating its effectiveness into economic growth. We use data from World Development Indicators (2018), Archigos (version 4.1) for Goemans et al. (2009) and Scartascini et al. (2021) from 1975 to 2019. The...

This study investigates the dynamic relationship between trade openness, external debt, and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the period from 1990 to 2023. The research examines how trade openness and external debt impact regional economic performance by employing Panel...

The Global Emerging Markets Risk Database (GEMs) Consortium was established in 2009 as a joint initiative between the European Investment Bank and the International Finance Corporation to pool credit risk data. The GEMs database is designed to support technical cooperation between international...

This study examined the infuence of climate change vulnerability on the external debt vulnerability of Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on the Vulnerable Twenties (V20s), utilizing panel data spanning from 2015 to 2020. The climate readiness, climate vulnerability, and external debt...

The share of U.S. dollar assets in the official foreign exchange reserve portfolios of central banks is sometimes taken as an indicator of dollar status. We show that the observed decline in the aggregate share of U.S. dollar assets does not stem from a systematic shift in currency preferences...

Most debates and policy proposals about Global South countries' external debt problem take for granted the view that it is normal for their governments to issue debts denominated in foreign currencies. This paper tries to challenge this widely held and usually unquestioned assumption by relying...

This paper challenges the prevailing view in the sovereign debt literature by arguing that sovereign debt markets, in many respects, behave similarly to other credit markets. These markets are hierarchical rather than flat, inherently hybrid in nature, blending elements of public order and...

In this paper, we study the drivers of public debt surges across 172 countries from 1980-2021. We focus on the role of discrepancies between the annual change in public debt and the budget deficit, referred to as stock-flow adjustments (SFA). The analysis employs survival methods to model the...

The relationship between external debt and agriculture productivity is a topic of significant importance in developing economies. Agriculture is a fundamental sector in these economies, often providing livelihoods for a substantial portion of the population. External debt, on the other hand, is...

This study examined the effect of public debt on macroeconomic stability among 45 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries for the period 2005-2022 using the two-step system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). The study disaggregated public debt into domestic and foreign borrowing and determined the...

This research tackles a gap in existing literature by offering empirical insights into the effectiveness of utilizing the Gold and Foreign Exchange Contingency Reserve Account (GFECRA) in overseeing total domestic debt, thereby enhancing our comprehension of fiscal policy implications and debt...

This paper focuses on the significant growth of domestic credit once the debt is restructured, and shows that it is not correlated with the size of the haircut. Second, it performs an event study around Ecuador’s sovereign default and restructuring of 2008–2009 to study changes in domestic bank...

This paper proposes the establishment of a European Debt Agency (EDA) as a tool for the efficient management of Eurozone public debt, to address two primary risks: roll-over and sustainability risk. The proposed EDA would price its loans using a transparent formula that would anchor the price to...

The public debt overhang spread across advanced countries, and the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact in the Euro Zone, have revived the polarization between those who think that debt is always good and those who think that debt is always bad. This paper presents a normative model of...