Emerging economies that are large oil producers have sizable external debt, their country risk rises when oil prices fall, and several of them have defaulted at least once since 1979. Moreover, while oil and non-oil output reduce country risk on impact and in the long-run, oil reserves reduce it...

We study the extent to which the perceived cost of losing the exorbitant privilege the US holds in global safe asset markets sustains the safety of its public debt. Our findings indicate that the loss of this special status in the event of a default significantly augments the debt capacity for...

This paper investigates the implications of international financial sanctions for the reserve currency status of the US dollar. We propose a simple model of a reserve currency, demonstrate how the anticipation of financial sanctions can weaken the dollar's status, and evaluate the welfare...

We explore the role of sectoral debt dynamics in shaping business cycles in a sample of 52 Emerging Market Economies (EMEs) and Frontier Market Economies (FMEs) from 2005 to 2021. Higher household debt levels and growth are associated with significantly slower GDP growth in more developed EMEs...

We study the nature of sovereign credit risk using an extensive sample of CDS spreads for 26 developed and emerging-market countries. Sovereign credit spreads are surprisingly highly correlated, with just three principal components accounting for more than 50 percent of their variation....

When a sovereign faces the risk of debt default, it may be tempted to expropriate the private sector. This may be one reason for why international investment in private companies has to take into account the sovereign risk. But the likelihood of a transfer from the sovereign risk to corporate...

We apply ideas from fiscal federalism to reassess how fiscal authority should be delegated within a monetary union. In a real-economy model with no fiscal externalities, in which local fiscal authorities have an informational advantage about the preferences of their citizens for public spending...

A financial crisis with a capital flow reversal occurs when a country shifts abruptly from a 'good' equilibrium with a low country-specific risk premium to a 'bad' equilibrium with a high country-specific risk premium and no foreign credit