Collective action clauses (CACs) are provisions specifying that a supermajority of bondholders can change the terms of a bond. We study how CACs determine governments’ fiscal incentives, sovereign bond prices and default probabilities in environments with and without contingent debt and...

Since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s, the choice of the exchange rate regime has been the subject of a lively debate in international finance. In this study, we investigate the determinants of three exchange rate regimes (fixed, flexible and intermediate). Our...

This paper proposes a model encompassing alternative views of contagion by highlighting the different channels of transmission of financial crises in an unifying framework. We study investor behaviour when they are affected by external habit formation. It is shown how international portfolio...

Are lending contracts between international financial institutions (IFIs) and sovereign borrowers optimal? To address this question this paper builds on two ideas. First, the prospect of future debt relief can make it profitable for an IFI to continue lending even if lending contracts are...

This paper examines whether recent international policy initiatives to facilitate financial rescues in emerging market countries have influenced debtors' incentives to access official sector resources. The paper highlights a country's systemic importance as a key characteristic that drives...

This paper examines how the choice of exchange rate regime can signal financial rectitude and, in so doing, influcence a country's ability to borrow internationally in domestic currency. We develop a model in which the constant probability of a 'type change' creates incentives for disciplined...

This paper explores the case of a sovereign indebted country facing a choice of economic policy today that will determine the country's ability to continue its debt servicing in the future. If the sovereign undertakes an unsound economic policy it will repudiate its debt with certainty;...

We present the first firm-level analysis of stock market liberalization on investment. In the year that an emerging economy liberalizes, the growth rate of its typical firm^Òs capital stock exceeds the pre-liberalization mean by 4.1 percentage points. In each of the next three years the average...

This paper examines the effects that capital inflows have on the financial system in a Diamond-Dybvig environment. Here, an adverse-selection problem arises where short-term capital has the incentive to enter the domestic banking system while long-term capital chooses to stay out. Then,...

If country and currency risk premiums are positively correlated, a negative international liquidity shock harms twice the economy, thereby substantially increasing interest rates. This harmful positive correlation between country and currency risk premiums observed in some countries is called...