We show that sovereign debt is unsustainable if debt contracts are not supported by direct sanctions and default carries only a ban from ever borrowing in financial markets even in the presence of uninsurable risks and time-varying interest rate. This extension of Bulow and Rogoff, 1989 requires...

This paper explores how selective default expectations affect the pricing of sovereign bonds in a historical laboratory: the German default of the 1930s. We analyze yield differentials between identical government bonds traded across various creditor countries before and after bond market...

This paper delves into the dynamic impact of Ecuador's 2008 sovereign debt default on the subsequent performance of the country's bonds, specifically as measured by the Emerging Markets Bond Index (EMBI). Through a blend of qualitative and quantitative analyses, the paper develops a framework...

We study the occurrence of holdout litigation in the context of sovereign defaults. The number of creditor lawsuits against foreign governments has strongly increased over the past decades, but there is a large variation across crisis events. Why are some defaults followed by a "run to the...

We study sovereign external debt crises over the past 200 years, with a focus on creditor losses, or "haircuts". Our sample covers 327 sovereign debt restructurings with external private creditors over 205 default spells since 1815. Creditor losses vary widely (from none to 100%), but the...

We estimate the effect of consolidation efforts on investors' perception of government's solvency. To this end, we analyze announcements by Dutch government officials between September 2008 and December 2014 and select those messages that contain relevant new information on the likelihood and...

This paper investigates how a country's economic complexity influences its sovereign yield spread with respect to the United States. Notably, a one-unit increase in the Economic Complexity Index is associated with a reduction of about 87 basis points in the 10-year yield spread. However, this...

We study the sustainability of public debt in a closed production economy where a benevolent government chooses fiscal policies, including haircuts on its outstanding debt, in a discretionary manner. Government bonds are held by domestic agents to smooth consumption over time and because they...