This paper builds a new dataset on bank ownership and reassesses the links between state-ownership of banks and each of financial development, economic growth, financial stability, bank performance, liquidity creation, and lending cyclicality. Using panel data to estimate the short-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...