Competence behind sovereign ratings is crucial, given that the government bond market may be vulnerable to multiple equilibria and self-fulfilling prophecies. With this in mind, this paper reviews and scrutinises official Standard & Poor's publications that address key issues surrounding the...

Given the shortcomings of the current responses to the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone, the author proposes utilising national gold reserves as collateral for government debt. Gold backing would be quite attractive to bond investors and would significantly ease the burden of high sovereign...