In 2010 Greece became the first advanced country to enter a sovereign default crisis. Preceding the crisis, debt relative to GDP was high and counter-cyclical, and consumption was smoother than income. Debt spiked just prior to the crisis. These dynamics are counter to the predictions of the...

We propose an econometric model for predicting the share of bank debt held by bankrupt firms by combining a novel set of firm-level financial variables and macroeconomic indicators. Our firm-level data include payment remarks in the form of debt collections from private agencies and attachments...