This paper studies external sovereign bonds as an asset class. We compile a new database of 266,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of Waterloo) and 2016, covering up to 91 countries. Our main insight is that, as in...

China’s lending boom to developing countries is morphing into defaults and debt distress. Given the secrecy surrounding China’s loans, also the associated defaults remain “hidden”, as missed payments and restructuring details are not disclosed. We construct an encompassing dataset of...