The global financial crisis highlighted that the financial system can be most vulnerable when it seems most stable. This paper models non-linear dynamics in banking. Small shocks can lead from an equilibrium with few bank defaults straight to a full freeze. The mechanism is based on...

This paper applies stochastic simulation methods to assess debt sustainability in emerging market economies and provide probability measures for projections of the external and public debt burden over the medium term. The vulnerability of public debt to adverse shocks is determined by a number...

This paper proposes a new framework for the analysis of public sector debt sustainability. The framework uses concepts and methods from modern practice of contingent claims to develop a quantitative risk-based model of sovereign credit risk. The motivation in developing this framework is to...

This paper develops a comprehensive new framework to measure and analyze sovereign risk. Since traditional macroeconomic vulnerability indicators and accounting-based measures do not address risk in a comprehensive and forward-looking way, the contingent claims approach is used to construct a...

We explore the stability properties of interest rate rules granting an explicit response to stock prices in a New-Keynesian DSGE model populated by Blanchard-Yaari non-Ricardian households. The constant turnover between long-time stock holders and asset-poor newcomers generates a financial...

We review the impact of the global financial crisis, and its spillovers into the sovereign sector of the euro area, on the international “rules of the game†for dealing with sovereign debt crises. These rules rest on two main pillars. The most important is the IMF’s lending...

Highly favorable external conditions have helped Latin America strengthen its economic fundamentals over the last decade. But, has the region built enough buffers to guard itself from a weakening of the external environment? This paper addresses this question by developing a simple framework...

By analysing data from January 2007 to December 2012 in a panel GLS error correction framework we find that European countries’ sovereign CDS spreads are largely driven by global investor sentiment, macroeconomic fundamentals and liquidity conditions in the CDS market. But the relative...

We quantify gains from introducing non-defaultable debt as a limited additional financing option into a model of equilibrium sovereign risk. We find that, for an initial (defaultable) sovereign debt level equal to 66 percent of trend aggregate income and a sovereign spread of 2.9 percent,...

We examine how the cost of corporate credit varies around fiscal consolidations aimed at reducing government debt. Using a new dataset on fiscal consolidations and syndicated corporate loan data, we find that loan spreads increase with fiscal consolidations, especially for small firms, domestic...