In financial and economic policy circles concerned with public debt in developingcountries, a rising debt-GDP ratio is interpreted as a signal of overborrowing, warn-ing of debt defaults if strong fiscal corrections are not adopted in time. This papershows why this interpretation is incorrect by...

The ratios of public debt as a share of GDP of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico were 12 percentagepoints higher on average during the period 1996-2005 than in the period 1990-1995. CostaRica's debt ratio remained stable but at a high level near 50 percent. Is there reason to beconcerned for the...

We revisit the debt overhang question. We first use non-parametric 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) debt ends...

We empirically analyse the appropriateness of indexing emerging market sovereign debt to USreal interest rates. We find that policy-induced exogenous increases in US rates raise default riskin emerging market economies, as hypothesised in the theoretical literature. However, we also findevidence...

In this paper we analyse the comparative pricing of vanilla and GDP linkedsovereign debt. The key feature of GDP linked bonds is that their cashflowscoupons,principal or both-are linked to the evolution of the country’s nationalincome. While it has long been argued that indexing debt to...

The paper explores the determinants of up-front fees on sovereign bank loans.Remuneration of bank loans is typically channelled through the floating interestbenchmark, the interest spread, and a battery of fees. There is substantial evidence of thespread paying for long-run sovereign repayment...

This paper studies public-debt runs under alternative assumptions on the distribution oftaxes among tax bases, the distribution of debt among classes of taxpayers, and thedistributive preferences of the government. Asymmetries in the distribution of taxes--arising, for example, from income-tax...

This paper explores the relationship between the denomination ofpublic debt and the choice of exchange rate regime. Unlike indexeddomestic debt, foreign debt is subject to valuation e¤ects from realexchange rate shocks. In a standard set-up, where a peg functions onlyas a nominal anchor, more...