Sovereign defaults are bad news for investors and debtor countries, in particular if a default becomes messy and protracted. Why are some debt crises resolved quickly, in a matter of months, while others take many years to settle? This paper studies the duration of sovereign debt crises based on...

Compared with China's dominance in world trade, its expanding role in global finance is poorly documented and understood. Over the past decades, China has exported record amounts of capital to the rest of the world. Many of these financial flows are not reported to the IMF, the BIS or the World...

Im Zuge der Corona Krise werden europäische Gemeinschaftsanleihen zur Unterstützung von besonders betroffenen Mitgliedsländern intensiv diskutiert. Die Autoren zeigen, dass Gemeinschaftsanleihen europäischer Staaten keine Neuigkeit wären. Seit den 1970er Jahren hat die Europäische...

The history of joint European bond issuance has been largely forgotten. The authors show that bonds issued and guaranteed jointly by European states are not a novel instrument, but have repeatedly been issued since the 1970s. The issuance of one-off "Coronabonds", as currently proposed, would...

Official (government-to-government) lending is much larger than commonly known, often surpassing total private cross-border capital flows, especially during disasters such as wars, financial crises and natural catastrophes. We assemble the first comprehensive long-run dataset of official...

Compared with China's pre-eminent status in world trade, its role in global finance is poorly understood. This paper studies the size, characteristics, and determinants of China's capital exports building a new database of 5000 loans and grants to 152 countries, 1949-2017. We find that 50% of...

Official (government-to-government) lending is much larger than commonly known, often surpassing total private cross-border capital flows, especially during disasters such as wars, financial crises and natural catastrophes. We assemble the first comprehensive long-run dataset of official...

China's lending boom to developing countries is morphing into defaults and debt distress. Given the secrecy surrounding China's loans, also the associated defaults remain 'hidden', as missed payments and restructuring details are not disclosed. We construct an encompassing dataset of sovereign...

Official ending is much larger than commonly known, often surpassing total private cross-border capital flows, especially during wars, financial crises and natural catastrophes. This paper assembles the first comprehensive long-run dataset of official international loans, covering 230,000 loans,...