The aging of the population shakes the confidence in the economic viability of pay-as-you-go social security systems. We demonstrate how in a political-economy framework the shaken cofidence leads to the downsizing of the social security-system, and to the emergence of supplemental individual...

This paper proposes a tractable framework to analyze fiscal space and the dynamics of government debt, with a possibly binding zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint. Without the ZLB, a greater primary deficit unambiguously raises debt. However, debt need not explode: When R G - φ, where φ is the...

We develop a model that captures important features of debt crises of the Brazilian type. Its applicability to Brazil lies in the fact that (1) macro fundamentals were sound in the wake of the crisis (e .g., a non-negligible primary surplus, a relatively low debt/GDP ratio, low inflation, etc.);...

We develop a model that captures important features of debt crises of the Brazilian type. Its applicability to Brazil lies in the fact that (1) in Brazil the macro fundamentals were sound (e.g., a primary surplus, a relatively low debt/GDP ratio, etc.); and (2) in the Brazilian case the trigger...

This paper argues that the frequent failure of the debt swaps is not an accident. Instead, it follows from fundamental forces driven by the market's assessment of the scarcity of fiscal revenue relative to the demand for fiscal outlays. It follows from the observation that arbitrage forces...

We develop a stylised model of multiple equilibria, with country risk spreads at the focus of the analysis. Fears that the country default on its debt triggers a reversal in the direction of inflows of international financial capital raise interest-rate spreads and thus the cost of servicing the...

This paper investigates the behavior of public debt in countries forming a union (as outlined, e.g., by the Maastricht treaty). We consider a federal union of states where the center has limited control over the spending patterns of the union members, and where the union members' behavior has...

The implications of a large public debt for the implementation of capital controls for an economy where tax revenue collection is costly are examined. Conditions are analyzed under which policymakers will resort to capital controls to reduce the cost of recycling domestic public debt. The...

Bequest constraints have played a major role in discussions of debt neutrality but their welfare implications were not sufficiently dealt with in the literature. In this paper we focus on the welfare implications of bequest constraints. We found that when institutional constraints to the...

We study the interactions between sovereign debt default and maturity choice in a setting with limited commitment for repayment as well as future debt issuances. Our main finding is that under a wide range of conditions the sovereign should, as long as default is not preferable, remain passive...