How costly are sovereign debt crises? In this paper we study output losses during sovereign default and debt renegotiation episodes since 1980. In contrast to previous work, we account for the severity of default and not only for its occurrence. Specifically, we distinguish between "hard" and...

What is an optimal or a sustainable external debt - for a country, region or sector? How should one monitor and evaluate debt to preclude a crisis? We use stochastic optimal control/dynamic programming to derive an optimal debt. The deviation of the actual from the optimal will serve as a...

One of the main functions of public debt is to smooth taxes and spending over time. In the Covid crisis, the Maastricht deficit restrictions were temporarily suspended to allow for large temporary deficits. As recovery sets in, countries are confronted with the task of consolidating the Covid...

The paper analyzes the dynamic effects of a total factor productivity shock and an interest rate risk premium shock in a highly indebted open economy. In contrast to the standard open economy framework, search unemployment and wage bargaining are introduced. We find that a negative total factor...

This paper investigates the long-run effects of public debt and inflation on economic growth. Our contribution is both theoretical and empirical. On the theoretical side, we develop a cross-sectionally augmented distributed lag (CS-DL) approach to the estimation of long-run effects in dynamic...

We study the environmental and economic effects of public abatement in the presence of multiple stable steady-state ecological equilibria. Under shallow-lake dynamics (SLD), the isocline for the stock of pollution features two stable branches, a good and a bad one. Assuming that the ecology is...

This paper develops a dynamic two-country neoclassical stochastic growth model with incomplete markets. Short-term credit flows can be excessive and reverse suddenly. The equilibrium outcome is constrained inefficient due to pecuniary externalities. First, an undercapitalized country borrows too...

The rapidly growing federal government debt has become a concern for policy makers and the public. Yet the U.S. government has seemingly unbounded access to credit at low interest rates. Historically, Treasury yields have been below the growth rate of the economy. The paper examines the...

This paper empirically studies whether it pays off (in terms of economic growth) to fulfill the convergence criteria on the public budget and participation in the Euro-zone. The analysis is based on data of European economies with a special focus on twelve Euro-zone members and a control group...

Almost all countries announced fiscal support programs once COVID-19 hit. However, there was significant diversity in the magnitude and composition of these fiscal stimulus programs. These differences were determined by myriad political, financial, social, and economic factors - these factors...