We model a sovereign debt manager who has a prediction of the budget deficit and needs to raise debt at the beginning of the budget period. In this setting, the sovereign may issue debt in excess of expected funding needs – a precautionary cash buffer – as a measure of self-insurance against...

The financial performance of governments in issuing debt is an open empirical question. We develop performance measures for the decisions debt management offices (DMOs) face: The amount to issue is largely exogenous to them, but they determine its distribution across issue dates (timing) and the...