This paper presents a new database on government debt in 19 emerging market countries since 1980. The data set focuses on the structure of debt in terms of jurisdiction of insurance, maturity, currency composition and indexation. The paper presents stylized facts on debt structures and...

Drawing on the available theory and empirical evidence, this paper attempts to map out some of the key factors that contribute to international financial instability. It then uses this to develop a possible taxonomy for the array of proposed (and some already existing) policy instruments...

We investigate the impact of local and global macroeconomic factors on Eurobonds and local currency issued bonds in Sub-Saharan Africa, at different points on the yield curve. Using a unique proprietary data set collected from local authorities, central banks and independent international...

Sovereign state-contingent bonds, in particular growth-indexed bonds (GIBs), have rarely been issued in practice despite their theoretical benefits. This paper provides support for this apparent sovereign noncontingency puzzle by deriving the impact of GIBs on the upper tail of the distribution...

We study the joint behavior of external debt, international reserves, and the real interest rate based on a dynamic regime-switching small open economy model that incorporates the salient features of economic crises in emerging markets. Our model allows an assessment of the two well-known...

Debt in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) is at its highest level in half a century. In about nine out of 10 EMDEs, debt is higher now than it was in 2010 and, in half of the EMDEs, debt is more than 30 percentage points of gross domestic product higher. Historically, elevated...

International financial institutions (IFIs) generally enjoy preferred creditors treatment (PCT). Although PCT rarely appears in legal contracts, when sovereigns restructure bilateral or commercial debts, they normally pay IFIs in full. This paper presents a model where a creditor, such as an...

The three major credit rating agencies have reassessed sovereign credit risks in the light of the Great Financial Crisis, increasing the transparency of their methodologies. This has resulted in material shifts in the rank-ordering of risks. Simple statistical models explain the lion's share of...

We examine the changes in cross-border bank lending during the European sovereign crisis. We find evidence of: (i) a “flight-to-quality” in “core” European sovereigns and residential mortgages that is specific to large highly levered banks with a small number of defaulted loans in their...

Sovereign debt restructurings can be implemented preemptively -- prior to a payment default. We code a comprehensive new dataset and find that preemptive restructurings (i) are frequent (38% of all deals 1978-2010), (ii) have lower haircuts, (iii) are quicker to negotiate, and (iv) see lower...