Sovereign debt crises are difficult to solve. This paper studies the "holdout problem", meaning the risk that creditors refuse to participate in a debt restructuring. We document a large variation in holdout rates, based on a comprehensive new dataset of 23 bond restructurings with external...

The paper reviews the economic risks associated with regimes of high public debt through DSGE model simulations. The large public debt build-up following the 2009 global financial and economic crisis acted as a shock absorber for output, while in the recent and more severe COVID19-crisis, an...