This paper argues that the Eurozone crisis stems from a risk management failure in the Eurosystem's design, and that applying insurance theory is useful. We model risk neutral agents choosing portfolios of government bonds of n countries in a monetary union and other assets. We firstly analyse a...

Despite the initiatives of the Finance Commission of India, fiscal performance has been deteriorating and increasingly diverging across Indian states. Given that the state governments are endowed with expenditure autonomy, this paper investigates whether the composition of expenditure of the...

This Feature considers the debts of quasi-sovereign states in light of proposals to let them file for bankruptcy protection. States that have ceded some but not all sovereign prerogatives to a central government face distinct challenges as debtors. It is unhelpful to analyze these challenges...

Recent state and municipal budget crises have generated a great deal of consternation among market participants and policymakers; they have also led scholars to debate the merits of bailouts or other forms of debt relief. This Essay considers why the mechanisms that were supposed to control...