Globally, financial institutions have increased their holdings of domestic sovereign debt, tightening the linkage between the health of the financial system and the level of sovereign debt, or the "financial sector-sovereign nexus," during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In South Africa, the...

In various writings Karl Marx made references to an "aristocracy of finance" in Western Europe and the United States that dominated ownership of the public debt. Drawing on original research, this paper offers the first comprehensive analysis of the pattern of public debt ownership within the US...