This paper acknowledges the fact that some countries have to borrow in foreign currencies due to the various constraints they face. Starting from this point, the author reviews approaches for trying to determine the currency structure for sovereign debt, and discusses some issues inherent in...

Countries with high debt exposure are vulnerable to economic and financial shocks that could lead to sovereign defaults. This paper develops a methodology to identify countries that are at risk of debt default based on four elements of debt vulnerability. These elements capture the different...

More than 20 developing countries do not publish any data on their sovereign debt. In those that do disclose data, public debt statistics usually do not comply with international standards in terms of coverage and definitions. Some information can be deduced through indirect disclosure of debt...

The authors revisit the debt overhang question. They first use nonparametric techniques to isolate a panel of countries on the downward sloping section of a debt Laffer Curve. In particular, overhang countries are ones where a threshold level of debt is reached in sample, beyond which (initial)...

This paper examines the determinants of "debt distress," which they define as periods in which countries resort to exceptional finance in any of three forms: (1) significant arrears on external debt, (2) Paris Club rescheduling, and (3) nonconcessional International Monetary Fund lending. Using...

The authors argue that emerging economies borrow short term due to the high risk premium charged by international capital markets on long-term debt. They first present a model where the debt maturity structure is the outcome of a risk-sharing problem between the government and bondholders. By...

Recent global initiatives on debt relief and development assistance call for increasing aid for trade to the poorest countries. The paper applies a multi-country computable general equilibrium model to measure the effectiveness of alternative aid for trade categories. The findings show that aid...

How can the impact of aid be estimated in the presence of fungibility? And how far does fungibility reduce its benefits? These questions are analyzed in a context where a donor wants to target its efforts on a specific sector and specific geographic areas. A traditional...

Despite the popularity of the term among advocates of debt forgiveness, there is little agreement on a workable definition of "odious" debts and there are but few examples where the concept has been invoked in law to justify non-payment of sovereign debts. Most often, these have been cases when...