The Logic of Twin Debt and Currency Crises

While the well-known twin currency and banking crises has drawn a lot of interest a second type of twin crises, the simultaneous occurrence of currency and debt crises, has so far been neglected in the literature. The decision of a government to devalue and/or to default is closely interlinked through the government's intertemporal budget constraint and the market expectaions. On the one hand, debt and currency crisis are negatively interlinked as a debt crisis eases the fiscal burden of the government thereby making a currency crisis less likely and vice versa. On the other hand, debt and currency crises are positively interlinked, as the expectation of a debt crisis can increase the fiscal burden by rising interest rates so that an additional crisis becomes more likely