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Report
Pareto Improving Fiscal and Monetary Policies: Samuelson in the New Keynesian Model
This paper explores the positive and normative consequences of government bond issuances in a New Keynesian model with heterogeneous agents, focusing on how the stock of government bonds affects the cross-sectional allocation of resources in the spirit of Samuelson (1958). We characterize the Pareto optimal levels of government bonds and the associated monetary policy adjustments that should accompany Pareto-improving bond issuances. The paper introduces a simple phase diagram to analyze the global equilibrium dynamics of inflation, interest rates, and labor earnings in response to changes in ...
Discussion Paper
Chronic sovereign debt crises in the Eurozone, 2010-2012
Two years after the rescue package for Greece provided by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in May 2010, sovereign debt crises continue to threaten a growing number of countries in the eurozone. We develop a theory for analyzing these crises based on the research of Cole and Kehoe (1996, 2000) and Conesa and Kehoe (2012). In this theory, the need to frequently sell large quantities of bonds leaves a country vulnerable to sovereign debt crisis. This vulnerability provides a strong incentive to the country?s government to run surpluses to pay down its debt to a level where ...
Working Paper
Default and the maturity structure in sovereign bonds
This paper studies the maturity composition and the term structure of interest rate spreads of government debt in emerging markets. We document that in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Russia, when interest rate spreads rise, debt maturity shortens and the spread on short-term bonds is higher than on long-term bonds. To account for this pattern, we build a dynamic model of international borrowing with endogenous default and multiple maturities of debt. Short-term debt can deliver higher immediate consumption than long-term debt; large longterm loans are not available because the borrower cannot ...
Report
Micro Risks and Pareto Improving Policies with Low Interest Rates
We provide sufficient conditions for the feasibility of a Pareto-improving fiscal policy when the risk-free interest rate on government bonds is below the growth rate. We do so in the class of incomplete markets models pioneered by Bewley-Huggett-Aiyagari, but we allow for an arbitrary amount of ex ante heterogeneity in terms of preferences and income risk. We consider both the case of dynamic inefficiency as well as the more plausible case of dynamic efficiency. The key condition is that seigniorage revenue raised by government bonds exceeds the increase in the interest rate times the ...
Report
COVID-19 Vaccination and Financial Frictions
We study the COVID-19 epidemic in emerging markets that face financial frictions and its mitigation through social distancing and vaccination. We find that restricted vaccine availability in emerging markets, as captured by limited quantities and high prices, renders the pandemic exceptionally costly compared to economies without financial frictions. Improved access to financial markets enables better response to the delay in vaccine supplies, as it supports more stringent social distancing measures prior to wider vaccine availability. We show that financial assistance programs to such ...
Report
Sovereign Risk Contagion
We develop a theory of sovereign risk contagion based on financial links. In our multi-country model, sovereign bond spreads comove because default in one country can trigger default in other countries. Countries are linked because they borrow, default, and renegotiate with common lenders, and the bond price and recovery schedules for each country depend on the choices of other countries. A foreign default increases the lenders' pricing kernel, which makes home borrowing more expensive and can induce a home default. Countries also default together because by doing so they can renegotiate the ...
Working Paper
Dollarization and financial integration
How does a country?s choice of exchange rate regime impact its ability to borrow from abroad? We build a small open economy model in which the government can potentially respond to shocks via domestic monetary policy and by international borrowing. We assume that debt repayment must be incentive compatible when the default punishment is equivalent to permanent exclusion from debt markets. We compare a floating regime to full dollarization. We find that dollarization is potentially beneficial, even though it means the loss of the monetary instrument, precisely because this loss can strengthen ...
Report
Default and the maturity structure in sovereign bonds
This paper studies the maturity composition and the term structure of interest rate spreads of government debt in emerging markets. In the data, when interest rate spreads rise, debt maturity shortens and the spread on short-term bonds is higher than on long-term bonds. To account for this pattern, we build a dynamic model of international borrowing with endogenous default and multiple maturities of debt. Short-term debt can deliver higher immediate consumption than long-term debt; large long-term loans are not available because the borrower cannot commit to save in the near future towards ...
Report
Default Risk, Sectoral Reallocation and Persistent Recessions
Sovereign debt crises are associated with large and persistent declines in economic activity, disproportionately so for nontradable sectors. This paper documents this pattern using Spanish data and builds a two-sector dynamic quantitative model of sovereign default with capital accumulation. Recessions are very persistent in the model and more pronounced for nontraded sectors because of default risk. An adverse domestic shock increases the likelihood of default, limits capital in?ows, and thus restricts the ability of the economy to exploit investment opportunities. The economy responds by ...
Report
Linkages across sovereign debt markets
We develop a multicountry model in which default in one country triggers default in other countries. Countries are linked to one another by borrowing from and renegotiating with common lenders with concave payoffs. A foreign default increases incentives to default at home because it makes new borrowing more expensive and defaulting less costly. Foreign defaults tighten home bond prices because they lower lenders' payoffs. Foreign defaults make home default less costly by lowering future recoveries, because countries can extract more surplus if they renegotiate simultaneously. In our model, ...