We investigate the political determinants of risk premiums which sub-national governments in Switzerland have to pay for their sovereign bond emissions. For this purpose we make use of financial market data from 288 tradable cantonal bonds in the period from 1981 to 2007. Our main focus is on...

This paper studies the impact of income inequality on sovereign spreads under elastic labor and endogenous taxation. We first document that high pre-tax income inequality is associated with high spreads both across countries and across U.S. states. We then develop a sovereign default model with...

Studies have shown that markets may underprice sub-national governments' risk on the implicit assumption that these entities would be bailed out by their central government in case of financial difficulties. However, the question of whether sovereigns pay a premium on their own borrowing as a...

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...

This book challenges the prevalent assumption that sovereign debt must be repaid — even after a major regime change — in order to maintain country creditworthiness. It argues that this conventional wisdom is overly simplistic and in some cases entirely wrong, and contends that its underlying...

This paper investigates the role that Eurobonds could play in making EMU stable in the long run. We establish that EMU's budgetary problems are not only caused by lack of budgetary discipline, but also by the large and sudden fiscal deterioration during the financial crisis. This type of shock...

In the absence of a judicial mechanism to reduce the debt burden of a sovereign member of our Union, the resolution process can be quick but perhaps too indifferent to the health, safety, and welfare of the affected residents. In this paper, I use evidence from the Arkansas state archives to...

Chengtou bond is the only asset with market prices that can capture the funding cost of Chinese local government debt. In contrast to the U.S. municipal bonds, Chengtou bonds are issued by private corporations but implicitly guaranteed by local and the central governments, which are reflected by...

Not only corporate but also sovereign debtors, in particular developing countries, may get into financial difficulties. Contrary to corporate issuers, they decide themselves if they continue to fulfill their debt obligations or convert their debt. I analyze the value of a default-risky sovereign...

Eurobonds sind seit langem als Instrument zur Lösung der europäischen Staatsschuldenkrise in der Diskussion. Allerdings können sie in Hinblick auf Haftungsausdehnung, Umfang, Besicherung, Konditionierung und institutionell-rechtliche Formen sehr unterschiedlich ausgestaltet werden. Der Autor...