Until recently, there have been few efforts to systematically measure and aggregate the nominal value of the different types of sovereign government debt in default. To help fill this gap, the Bank of Canada's Credit Rating Assessment Group (CRAG) has developed a comprehensive database of...

We lay out the IMF's rationale for its role in the international economy; particularly in helping those countries that are going through balance of payments crises. We then try to decipher whether the actual lending pattern of the IMF conforms to this rationale. This is done in the context of...

Highly indebted developing economies commonly also hold large external reserves. This behavior seems puzzling given that governments borrow with an interest rate penalty to compensate lenders for default risk. Although reducing external debt to the same extent as international reserves would...

The role of multilateral lenders in sovereign default has been traditionally overlooked by the literature. However, these creditors represent a significant share of lending to emerging markets and feature very distinct characteristics, such as lower interest rates and seniority. By including...

This paper studies whether IMF programs and their size affect borrowing costs by comparing the coupon of bonds issued around an IMF arrangement. By comparing bonds issued immediately before the inset of the program with bonds issued immediately after the program, we show that, on average, the...

A sovereign's inability to commit to a course of action regarding future borrowing and default behavior makes long-term debt costly (the problem of debt dilution). One mechanism to mitigate the debt dilution problem is the inclusion of a seniority clause in sovereign debt contracts. In the event...

According to the IMF, the current public debt makes up nearly 40 percent of the global debt, marking the highest share since the mid-1960s. Despite the vast research on alarming levels of sovereign default, the literature remains inconclusive. This paper investigates macroeconomic, financial,...

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...