Sovereign debt restructurings are associated with declines in GDP, investment, bank credit, and capital flows. The transmission channels and associated output and banking sector costs depend on whether the restructuring takes place pre-emptively, without missing payments to creditors, or whether...

Sovereign debt restructurings have been shown to influence the dynamics of imports and exports. This paper shows that the impact can vary substantially depending on whether the restructuring takes place preemptively without missing payments to creditors, or whether it takes place after a default...

Sovereign debt restructurings are associated with declines in GDP, investment, bank credit, and capital flows. The transmission channels and associated output and banking sector costs depend on whether the restructuring takes place preemptively, without missing payments to creditors, or whether...

We examine whether macroprudential policies and capital controls can contribute to enhancing financial stability in the face of large capital inflows. We construct new indices of foreign currency (FX)-related prudential measures, domestic prudential measures, and financial-sector capital...

This paper analyzes the different implications of denominating foreign debt in a tradable or in a nontradable good, analogous to foreign currency and a local price index respectively. While the price of tradables is exogenous to a small open economy, the price of nontradables reacts to the...

We exploit a discontinuity in Brazilian municipal election rules to investigate whether political competition has a causal impact on policy choices. In municipalities with less than 200,000 voters mayors are elected with a plurality of the vote. In municipalities with more than 200,000 voters a...

There are growing concerns that 25 years after the launch of the HIPC debt relief initiative, many low-income countries are again facing high debt vulnerabilities. This paper compares debt vulnerabilities in LICs today versus those on the eve of the HIPC Initiative and examines challenges to a...

Sovereign debt restructurings are associated with declines in the growth of GDP, investment, bank credit to the private sector and capital flow. Our empirical findings show that the intensity of these losses depends on two aspects: whether the restructuring preempts a default and the extent of...

Recent crises in emerging markets have been heavily driven by balance-sheet or net-worth effects. Episodes in countries as far-flung as Indonesia and Argentina have shown that exchange rate adjustments that would normally help to restore balance can be destabilizing, even catastrophic, for...