A sovereign that is issuing debt denominated in foreign currency is exposed to a mismatch between the value of its assets that can be used to serve the debt, denominated in local currency, and the value of its liability. During economic crisis, when the probability of default by the sovereign...

Highly indebted developing economies commonly also hold large external reserves. This behavior seems puzzling given that governments borrow with an interest rate penalty to compensate lenders for default risk. Although reducing external debt to the same extent as international reserves would...