We analyse the international transmission of interest rates by focusing on the role of the accumulation of international reserves and on the financing of sovereign debt. An increase in foreign exchange reserves is expected to moderate the influence of U.S. interest rates. However, a high level...

This Article argues that the norms and legal practices of global finance in the arenas of sovereign debt and private wealth have led to a significant market failure, in particular the over-supply of sovereign borrowing and a related misallocation of global capital away from its most productive...

An important ineffciency in sovereign debt markets is debt dilution, wherein sovereigns ignore the adverse impact of new debt on the value of existing debt and, consequently, borrow too much and default too frequently. A widely proposed remedy is the inclusion of seniority clause in sovereign...

This paper studies optimal levels of borrowing at each point of a given business cycle when default is considered a possible optimal decision. It also searches for parameters that can cause the sustainable equilibrium of different points in the business cycle to become unstable, or nonexistent....

This paper analyzes the impact of debt forgiveness on economic equilibrium. Since the root cause of an economic crisis is debt, eradicating the root may solve the problem. However, it does not prevent future crises from occurring. It is found that debt relief in a global scale can help reach...

We introduce a new suite of macroeconomic models that extend and complement the Debt, Investment, and Growth (DIG) model widely used at the IMF since 2012. The new DIG-Labor models feature segmented labor markets, efficiency wages and open unemployment, and an informal non-agricultural sector....

Three major global crises since 2008 have pushed up public and external debt ratios and associated risks across much of Asia and the Pacific. This is confirmed by debt ratio projections and evidence of widening pockets of vulnerability picked up by regional heat maps in this paper. By and large,...

Commercial databases now make available to paying clients information about the legal terms in sovereign loan contracts. This information is important to academic researchers, to policy institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, and to investors and other market actors. For a random...

Do government financial assets help improve public debt sustainability? To answer this question, we assemble a comprehensive dataset on government assets using multiple sources and covering 110 advanced and emerging market economies since the late 1980s. We then use this rich database to...