The French government currently honors a very unusual debt contract: an annuity that was issued in 1738 and currently yields 1.20 Euro per year. I tell the story of this unique debt, which serves as an anecdotal but symbolic summary of French public finances since the 18th century. -- life...

As the market for the trading of the British state's debt developed during the eighteenth century, the Bank of England found itself in a difficult position. It was the self-styled guardian of public credit, an institution which stood aloof as mediator between the state and its creditors, and, at...

This paper studies external sovereign bonds as an asset class. It compiles 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. The main insight is that, as in...

Little is known about the effect of seeking debt advice on borrowers' well-being. To estimate this effect, we designed a randomised encouragement intervention for a new sample of over-indebted people in Britain who had not sought debt advice in the previous six months. Being encouraged to seek...

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...

This paper studies external sovereign bonds as an asset class. We compile a new database of 220,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of Waterloo) and 2016, covering 91 countries. Our main insight is that, as in equity...