The history of debt relief is now particularly long, the associated costs are soaring and the outcomes are at least uncertain. This paper reviews and provides new evidence on the effects of recent debt relief programs on different macroeconomic indicators in developing countries, focusing on the...

Creditor countries and international organizations continue to disagree whether Greece should receive additional official debt relief, and if so how much. This paper first shows that these disagreements can be attributed to competing assumptions about Greece's future capacity to repay,...

During the pandemic, public debt in Latin America and the Caribbean rose to more than 70 percent of GDP, and countries are now attempting to lower debt ratios. We analyze past debt reduction episodes and find inflation and the real interest rate were the most frequent main drivers, while higher...

The paper investigates the relationship between external debt and economic growth, focusing on the role played by the policy and institutional framework. Results for a panel of 114 developing countries show that the debt-growth nexus depends on institutions and policies. The Debt-Laffer curve...

Rejecting a common assumption in the sovereign debt literature, we document that creditor losses ("haircuts") during sovereign restructuring episodes are asymmetric across debt instruments. We code a comprehensive dataset on instrument-specific haircuts for 28 debt restructurings with private...

Rejecting a common assumption in the sovereign debt literature, we document that creditor losses ('haircuts') during sovereign restructuring episodes are asymmetric across debt instruments. We code a comprehensive dataset on instrument-specific haircuts for 28 debt restructurings with private...

Rejecting a common assumption in the sovereign debt literature, we document that creditor losses ("haircuts") during sovereign restructuring episodes are asymmetric across debt instruments. We code a comprehensive dataset on instrument-specific haircuts for 28 debt restructurings with private...

The asset value of government has traditionally been seen as the accounting value of public assets. We develop a detailed financial economics view on sovereign asset values using market measures to arrive at implied sovereign asset values. We establish definition and dependencies within the...

“Safe assets” is a catch-all term for financial contracts that market participants treat as if they were risk-free. These may include government debt, AAA corporate debt, bank debt, and asset-backed securities, among others. The International Monetary Fund estimated potential safe assets at...