This paper proposes a new empirical measure of cooperative versus conflictual crisis resolution following sovereign default and debt distress. The index of government coerciveness is presented as a proxy for excusable versus inexcusable default behaviour and used to evaluate the costs of default...

Sovereign defaults are bad news for investors and debtor countries, in particular if a default becomes messy and protracted. Why are some debt crises resolved quickly, in a matter of months, while others take many years to settle? This paper studies the duration of sovereign debt crises based on...

Sovereign defaults are bad news for investors and debtor countries, in particular if a default becomes messy and protracted. Why are some debt crises resolved quickly, in a matter of months, while others take many years to settle? This paper studies the duration of sovereign debt crises based on...

Two centuries of Greek debt crises highlight the pitfalls of relying on external financing. Since its independence in 1829, the Greek government has defaulted four times on its external creditors - with striking historical parallels. Each crisis is preceded by a period of heavy borrowing from...

This paper studies external sovereign bonds as an asset class. We compile a new database of 266,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of Waterloo) and 2016, covering up to 91 countries. Our main insight is that, as in...

How will sovereign debt markets evolve in the 21st century? We survey how the literature has responded to the eurozone debt crisis, placing "lessons learned" in historical perspective. The crisis featured: (i) the return of debt problems to advanced economies; (ii) a bank-sovereign "doom-loop"...