This paper uses a new dataset on the composition of public debt in developing and emerging market countries to look at the correlation between country characteristics and domestic debt share. While the paper finds that most variables have the expected sign, it also finds that country...

This paper uses the rules of engineering as a rhetorical device to discuss why the international financial architecture needs a structured mechanism for dealing with sovereign insolvency. The paper suggests that the most important problem with the status-quo relates to delayed defaults and...

Quantitative models of sovereign debt predict that countries should default during deep recessions. However, empirical research on sovereign debt has found a surprisingly large share of "good times" defaults (i.e., defaults that happen when GDP is above trend). Existing evidence also indicates...

The 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda recognized the need for policies aimed at maintaining longterm debt sustainability. This paper describes a set of commonly used definitions of debt sustainability and shows that none of them focuses on long-term debt sustainability. It then discusses concept...

This paper describes and quantifies fiscal risk in advanced and developing economies. Forecast errors in GDP growth explain nearly half of fiscal risk in advanced economies. However, errors in growth forecasts are less important in explaining fiscal risk in low- and middle-income countries. Most...