Publications
Publications
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- Faculty Publications (52)
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- 2023
- Working Paper
Sovereign Default and the Decline in Interest Rates
By: Max Miller, James Paron and Jessica Wachter
Sovereign debt yields have declined dramatically over the last half-century. Standard explanations, including aging populations and increases in asset demand from abroad, encounter difficulties when confronted with the full range of evidence. We propose an explanation... View Details
- October 2022
- Article
Sovereign Risk, Currency Risk, and Corporate Balance Sheets
By: Wenxin Du and Jesse Schreger
We provide a comprehensive account of the evolution of the currency composition of sovereign and corporate external borrowing by emerging markets from 2003 to 2017. We show that a higher reliance on foreign currency debt by the corporate sector is associated with... View Details
- Article
Undisclosed Debt Sustainability
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
Over the past decade, non-Paris Club creditors, notably China, have become an important source of financing for low- and middle-income countries. In contrast with typical sovereign debt, these lending arrangements are not public, and other creditors have no information... View Details
- December 2020
- Article
Sovereign Debt Portfolios, Bond Risks, and the Credibility of Monetary Policy
By: Wenxin Du, Carolin Pflueger and Jesse Schreger
We document that governments whose local currency debt provides them with greater hedging benefits actually borrow more in foreign currency. We introduce two features into a government's debt portfolio choice problem to explain this finding: risk-averse lenders and... View Details
- 2020
- Chapter
Reserve Accumulation, Sovereign Debt, and Exchange Rate Policy
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
In the past decade, foreign participation in local-currency bond markets in emerging countries increased dramatically. Additionally, emerging countries are increasingly deviating from inflation targeting regimes, managing their exchange rate and engaging in... View Details
- 2019
- Chapter
From Coast to Hinterland: Fiscal State Formation in British and French West Africa, c. 1880–1960
By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
This chapter contrasts and compares the ways different colonial states in West Africa developed local fiscal capacity. We show that per capita revenues were higher in the more commercialised coastal export economies than in remote parts of the interior. We argue that... View Details
Keywords: Fiscal Capacity; Public Debt; French West Africa; British West Africa; Geography; History; Africa
- 2019
- Working Paper
Undisclosed Debt Sustainability
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
Over the past decade, non–Paris Club creditors, notably China, have become an important source of financing for low- and middle-income countries. In contrast with typical sovereign debt, these lending arrangements are not public, and other creditors have no information... View Details
- June 2019
- Article
Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
In the past decade, foreign participation in local-currency bond markets in emerging countries increased dramatically. We revisit sovereign debt sustainability under the assumptions that countries can accumulate reserves and borrow internationally using their own... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Towards a New Approach for Upgrading Europe's Competitiveness
By: Christian Ketels and Michael E. Porter
The traumatic experience of the European sovereign debt crisis, followed by the outcome of the British referendum on leaving the European Union, has sent shockwaves through Europe. For the first time since the signing of the Treaties of Rome six decades ago, the very... View Details
- February 2018
- Case
Infrastructure in Nigeria: Unlocking Pension Fund Investments
By: John Macomber and Pippa Tubman Armerding
The so-called “infrastructure finance gap” was a problem in Nigeria as in many parts of the world. Infrastructure projects like power plants and dams were very large capital investments that could generate long-term consistent cash flows, but their financing and... View Details
- February 2018
- Article
Financial Repression in the European Sovereign Debt Crisis
By: Bo Becker and Victoria Ivashina
By the end of 2013, the share of government debt held by the domestic banking sectors of Eurozone countries was more than twice its 2007 level. We show that this type of increasing reliance on the domestic banking sector for absorbing government bonds generates a... View Details
- April 2017 (Revised February 2020)
- Case
Restructuring Ukraine
By: Kristin Mugford, Seema Amble and Tian Feng
In June 2015, Ukraine found itself struggling with a volatile and devalued currency, dramatically diminished foreign reserves, and a projected financing shortfall of $40 billion. Ukraine’s new government sought to return the nation to stability following political... View Details
Keywords: Exchange Rates; Politics; Macroeconomics; Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Restructuring; Economy; Currency Exchange Rate; Banks and Banking; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Bonds; Sovereign Finance; Capital Markets; Credit; Debt Securities; Financial Liquidity; Financial Markets; Government and Politics; Ukraine
- Article
Market Reactions to Sovereign Litigation
By: Faisal Z. Ahmed and Laura Alfaro
Recent rulings in the ongoing litigation over the pari passu clause in Argentinian sovereign debt instruments have generated considerable controversy. Some official-sector participants and academic articles have suggested that the rulings will disrupt or impede... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Fiscal Rules and Sovereign Default
By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
Recurrent concerns over debt sustainability in emerging and developed nations have prompted renewed debate on the role of fiscal rules. Their optimality, however, remains unclear. We provide a quantitative analysis of fiscal rules in a standard model of sovereign debt... View Details
- February 2016
- Case
Debt and Democracy: The New York Constitutional Convention of 1846
By: David Moss and Dean Grodzins
On September 23, 1846, delegates to New York State's constitutional convention prepared to vote on a proposal that its principal proponent, Michael Hoffman, conceded would be “a serious change in our form of government.” The proposal would place tight restrictions on... View Details
- August 2015
- Article
A Comparative-Advantage Approach to Government Debt Maturity
By: Robin Greenwood, Samuel G. Hanson and Jeremy C. Stein
We study optimal government debt maturity in a model where investors derive monetary services from holding riskless short-term securities. In a setting where the government is the only issuer of such riskless paper, it trades off the monetary premium associated with... View Details
- Spring 2015
- Article
Sovereign Debt Restructuring: Evaluating the Impact of the Argentina Ruling
By: Laura Alfaro
Recent rulings in the ongoing litigation over the pari passu clause in Argentinian sovereign debt instruments have generated considerable controversy. Some official-sector participants and academic articles have suggested that the rulings will disrupt or impede... View Details
- March 2015
- Article
Vulnerable Banks
By: Robin Greenwood, Augustin Landier and David Thesmar
We present a model in which fire sales propagate shocks across bank balance sheets. When a bank experiences a negative shock to its equity, a natural way to return to target leverage is to sell assets. If potential buyers are limited, then asset sales depress prices,... View Details
- October 2014 (Revised April 2018)
- Supplement
Creditor Activism in Sovereign Debt: Argentina vs. Holdout Investors (B)
By: Laura Alfaro, Gaurav Toshniwal and Hilary White
Keywords: Argentina; Debt; Debt Crisis; Debt Markets; Debt Repayment; Debt Restructuring; Government Bonds; Government Debt; Law; Default; Sovereign Debt; Sovereign Debt Crisis; Hedge Fund; Hedge Funds; Strategy; Bonds; Bond Risk; Debt Management; Borrowing and Debt; Governance; Macroeconomics; Economics; Economy; Government Legislation; Argentina; Latin America; United States
- October 2014
- Article
Sovereigns, Upstream Capital Flows and Global Imbalances
By: Laura Alfaro, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Vadym Volosovych
We construct measures of net private and public capital flows for a large cross-section of developing countries considering both creditor and debtor side of the international debt transactions. Using these measures, we demonstrate that sovereign-to-sovereign... View Details