Historically, periods of high indebtedness have been associated with a rising incidence of default or restructuring of public and private debts. A subtle type of debt restructuring takes the form of "financial repression." Financial repression includes directed lending to government by captive...

We explore whether experiences during Europe's sovereign debt crisis support the notion that governments faced scenarios of self-fulfilling prophecy and multiple equilibria. To this end, we provide estimates of the effect of interest rates and other macroeconomic variables on sovereign debt...

This paper examines how indebted countries have reacted to the recent shift in the global debt relief architecture towards rewarding indebted countries that have ‘superior' institutions with increased debt relief by probing whether there is any empirical evidence to suggest that countries may...

This paper presents an analysis of the 2007-2010 Global Financial Crisis which started with the sub-prime crisis in the U.S. and became global very fast. It argues that the financial system in the United States is a complex interlocking structure of markets, institutions and regulators. The...

Newly developed long historical time series on public debt, along with modern data on external debts, allow a deeper analysis of the cycles underlying serial debt and banking crises. The evidence confirms a strong link between banking crises and sovereign default across the economic history of...

This paper analyzes the causes and implications of recent financial crises. Financial crises in general lead to changes in both theory and practice of economics. The paper takes an historical overview. The global consensus of economic theory during the 20th century is discussed. The paper...

This paper employs a regression-discontinuity (RD) design to ascertain the effects of social-democratic government on fiscal policy (budget deficits) and monetary policy (as reflected in inflation) and on currency and bond prices (i.e., exchange rates and yields). The RD design exploits the...

In recent years, for most emerging markets, public debt has decreased and its composition has evolved toward domestic currency. This progress is remarkable in terms of reduced financial vulnerability, which has been underpinned by favourable financing conditions and related deepening of local...

Historically, periods of high indebtedness have been associated with a rising incidence of default or restructuring of public and private debts. A subtle type of debt restructuring takes the form of "financial repression." Financial repression includes directed lending to government by captive...

This study addresses the need for an early warning system of financial distress of nations, amply demonstrated by failures in Mexico and South East Asia. We find that financial ratios of failing nations, and those of failing corporations, display similar patterns. A neural network was trained on...