Once a famous tale of conquest, law and foreign bond markets, the saga of the Silesian Bonds of 1734-37 is missing from the literature on sovereign debt. The Silesian Bonds were among the earliest foreign currency sovereign bonds issued. They go into the market 84 years prior to the 1818...

Compared with the relatively straightforward definition of a default event, assessing sovereign debt sustainability remains a grey area. The interaction between fiscal choices, lenders' expectations and economic uncertainty creates a setting in which-particularly when a default...

Why do countries set sovereign debt ceilings if they keep raising them? This paper shows that debt ceilings can serve as intermediate commitment devices that reduce expected dilution, thereby lowering spreads-and their volatility-even without reducing total borrowing. We propose a new sovereign...

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...

Public debt has increased steadily over the years, leaving many countries at risk of debt distress and even pushing some to default. This paper analyses the impact of sovereign default on post-default debtto-GDP ratios in 144 countries from 1980 to 2019. Applying the entropy balancing method, we...

The Global Emerging Markets Risk Database Consortium (GEMs) is a joint initiative between the European Investment Bank and the International Finance Corporation; it was established in 2009 to pool credit risk data. This database is a unique example of a tangible common good and is designed to...

Political crises often coincide with fiscal crises, with complex causal dynamics at play. We examine the interaction between tax revolts and sovereign risk using a quantitative structural model calibrated to Argentina. In the model, the government can be controlled by political parties with...

Political risk is a significant determinant of bond yields and economic growth in both developed and emerging markets and we develop a debt sustainability analysis model with both channels using a country ratings proxy of political risk. Political risk also affects a sovereign's willingness to...

We examine the 2025 U.S. debt limit episode through the lens of financial markets. First, we document an increase in trading activity in the U.S. sovereign CDS market, and we infer a probability of default from CDS premiums. We find that default risk reached 1% by the November 6 Presidential...

This paper is the first comprehensive analysis of the secured lending practices of Chinese creditors in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). We present a new dataset and detailed case studies of collateralized public and publicly guaranteed (PPG) loans from Chinese state-owned...

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of China’s lending to developing countries - a central feature of today’s international financial system. Building on our previous research and the work of others, we document the scale, destination, and terms of China’s overseas lending boom,...

This paper provides a systematic comparison of domestic and external sovereign defaults from 1980 to 2018, covering details of the default events, the different macro-financial, political and geo-economic environments in which they occur, and type of restructuring applied.