Historically, sovereign debt in local currency has been considered safer than debt in foreign currency. Yet the literature offers scant theoretical or empirical guidance as to why such a gap exists, or why it appears to have slowly and steadily diminished for all regions over the past two...

In this paper I explore the role of portfolio diversification in explaining the distribution of foreign investment across countries. I capture the portfolio diversification motive by a measure of country-specific riskiness, “covariance risk,” which I construct as how countries' growth rates...

In this paper the author empirically examines whether the influence of bilateral investment treaties' political risk guarantees extends to other types of capital flows - FDI, private debt, public debt and portfolio equity. The paper uses panel data on middle and low income countries during the...

This paper examines the influence of political risk guarantees of bilateral investment treaties on debt and equity flows using panel data on middle income countries for the period 1984-2011. Adopting system GMM methodology, the paper empirically finds that ratified bilateral investment treaties...

This paper examines two major risks to foreign investors: default on sovereign debt and expropriation of foreign direct investment, which we refer to collectively as "sovereign theft." Using a series of formal models, we analyze how the incentives to engage in sovereign theft vary with the state...

Evidence on international capital flows suggests that foreign direct investment (FDI) is less volatile than other financial flows. To explain this finding, I model international capital flows under the assumptions of imperfect enforcement of financial contracts and inalienability of FDI....

This paper analyzes the impact of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) on sovereign bond returns of 25 emerging markets from 1993 to 2016. Under a BIT, foreign investors can use an international arbitration scheme to enforce compensation claims against the domestic government in case of direct...

We examine the spillover effects between sovereigns and banks in a model with a heterogeneous banking system. An increase in sovereign's default risk affects financial intermediaries through two channels in this model. First, banks' funding costs might increase, inducing higher interest rates on...

A critical question faced by any sovereign seeking to raise funds in the bond market is whether to issue the debt under foreign or local parameters. This choice determines other key characteristics of any bond issue such as which banks, lawyers, and investors will be involved. Most important...