Search results for " debt"
showing 10 items of 158 documents
Political risks: the “red shift” in debt sustainability analysis
2020
Political stability and economic policy uncertainty can be key determinants of sovereign debt dynamics, and we show how they can be incorporated in debt sustainability analysis. We distinguish between short-term ambiguity and long-term uncertainty about political risk factors, and using a combination of narrative scenarios and calibrated probabilistic scenarios we obtain a comprehensive heatmap of high-risk debt dynamics. We use Italy as an interesting case study and demonstrate a “red shift” in the assessment of vulnerabilities when accounting for political risks. Ignoring these risks can lead to excessive optimism and wrong decisions.
EXPLORATION, EXPLOITATION AND INCENTIVES TO INNOVATE: THE DISCIPLINING ROLE OF DEBT
2014
Extant research suggests that when compared to equity, debt financing is less conducive to innovation activities. In this paper we challenge this view by suggesting that although equity sustains innovation by allowing risk-taking and experimentation, it may also encourage the pursuit of exploration at the expense of exploitation. Under these circumstances, the stricter governance associated with debt becomes important as it stimulates managers to shift resources towards exploitation in order to mitigate risk and improve short-term pay-offs. In support of these arguments our empirical analysis shows that, while leverage has a negative impact on standard measures of innovation quantity and qu…
The Consequences of Banking Crises for Public Debt
2010
The aim of this paper is to assess the consequences of banking crises for public debt. Using an unbalanced panel of 154 countries from 1980 to 2006, the paper shows that banking crises are associated with a significant and longlasting increase in government debt. The effect is a function of the severity of the crisis. In particular, for severe crises, comparable to the most recent one in terms of output losses, banking crises are followed by a medium-term increase of about 37 percentage points in the government gross debt-to-GDP ratio. In addition, the debt ratio increased more in countries with higher initial gross debt-to-GDP ratio, with a higher share of foreign debt, and with a lower qu…
Sovereign debt spreads in EMU: The time-varying role of fundamentals and market distrust
2017
Abstract This paper provides further analysis on the determinants of sovereign debt spreads for peripheral Eurozone countries since the start of EMU, paying special attention to episodes that characterized the global financial crisis aftermath starting in 2007. More specifically, the purpose of our research is to disentangle the role of fundamental variables and market perception about variations on risk in order to explain the evolution of sovereign spreads in EMU during the recent crisis. Our results, in line with previous literature, show the importance of three groups of observable variables, namely, changes in risk-aversion of creditors, fiscal indebtedness and liquidity variables. In …
How to pay for the debt — Coping with the Third World's crisis
1990
The Brady Plan is the first official proposal to give priority to a tangible reduction in the debtor countries' debt service burden and is thus a milestone along the path towards overcoming the international debt crisis. However, the instruments foreseen in the Plan virtually invite criticism and scepticism. What are the main inadequacies of the Brady Plan? How can the international debt strategy be developed further and made more effective?
The macroeconomic effects of public investment: Evidence from advanced economies
2015
This paper provides new evidence of the macroeconomic effects of public investment in advanced economies. Using public investment forecast errors to identify the causal effect of government investment in a sample of 17 OECD economies since 1985 and model simulations, the paper finds that increased public investment raises output, both in the short term and in the long term, crowds in private investment, and reduces unemployment. Several factors shape the macroeconomic effects of public investment. When there is economic slack and monetary accommodation, demand effects are stronger, and the public-debt-to-GDP ratio may actually decline. Public investment is also more effective in boosting ou…
Structural reforms in a debt overhang
2014
We assess the effects of reforms in product and labor markets in a model economy featuring credit restrictions and pre-existing long-term debt. Both elements, which are core features of the current scenario faced by some euro area countries, combine to produce a slow and protracted deleveraging of the private sector and a persistent recession following a negative financial shock. In this environment, we show that product and labor market reforms may stimulate output and employment even in the short run, despite their defl ationary effects. Furthermore, by favoring a faster recovery of investment and collateral values, product market reforms bring forward the end of deleveraging and the exit…
FISCAL POLICY, MACROECONOMIC STABILITY AND FINITE HORIZONS
2003
In this paper we analyse the stabilisation properties of distortionary taxes in a New Keynesian model with overlapping generations of finitely-lived consumers. In this framework, government debt is part of net wealth and this adds a number of interesting channels through which fiscal policy could affect output and inflation. Output volatility, in presence of technology shocks, is not substantially affected by the operation of automatic stabilisers but we find interesting composition effects. While the presence of finitely-lived households strengthens the stabilisation performance of distortionary taxes through the reduction of the volatility of consumption, it does so at the cost of more vo…
A wavelet analysis of US fiscal sustainability
2015
Abstract In this paper, we reassess the relationship between primary deficit and lagged debt to GDP ratio (Bohn, 1998), to test for US debt sustainability over the period 1795–2012. Our analysis is rooted in the wavelet domain enabling the detection of interesting patterns and otherwise hidden information. We find evidence of long term fiscal sustainability but only up until 1995 and also we show that governments tend to respond more vigorously to budget deficits when the level of debt is high rather than low.
Fiscal sustainability in the EU: From the short-term risk to the long-term challenge
2015
Abstract The paper analyses fiscal sustainability of public debt using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model. First, we identify the short-term risk for fiscal stress at country level; second, we investigate the assumption of convergence towards the government debt threshold (medium-term challenge); and, third, the requirement that debt projections do not show unsustainable trends (long-term challenge). The empirical implementation includes 18 EU Member States. Our findings show that the constant tax rate that stabilizes the public debt converges to 50 percentage of GDP for all the sample countries and tax revenues are the main driving forces for fiscal sustainability. Also our fin…