This paper analyzes the determinants of spreads on syndicated bank lending to emerging markets, treating the loan-extension and pricing decisions as jointly determined. Compared to the bond market, our findings highlight the role of international banks in providing credit to smaller borrowers...

We consider public debt from a long-term historical perspective, showing how the purposes for which governments borrow have evolved over time. Periods when debt-to-GDP ratios rose explosively as a result of wars, depressions and financial crises also have a long history. Many of these episodes...

Two general approaches have been offered for dealing with the developing country debt crisis: continued reliance on case-by-case negotiation, versus global plans for fundamentally restructuring the terms of international lending and repayment. Both approaches have precedents in earlier...

Recent years have seen the development of a large literature on balance sheet factors in emerging-market financial crises. In this paper we discuss three concepts widely used in this literature. Two of them original sin' and debt intolerance' seek to explain the same phenomenon, namely, the...