IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reveco/v41y2016icp391-410.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Extreme bounds of sovereign defaults: Evidence from the MENA region

Author

Listed:
  • Zeaiter, Hussein
  • El-Khalil, Raed

Abstract

This paper investigates the determinants of sovereign debt defaults using Leamer's (1983) extreme bounds analysis (EBA). The EBA approach is applied for the indebted countries in the MENA region during the 1970 to 2010 period to determine whether economic and political factors are robust or fragile. This study finds that debt accumulated arrears can be perceived as a signal of default and can warn MENA countries to prevent total failure or at least alleviate the severity of the default. This paper is important for policy makers in the MENA region when seeking to reduce the probability of default. Many recommendations are offered to the indebted MENA countries. For example, they should (1) attract more foreign reserves through adjusting domestic policies and regulations of investment, (2) enact proactive fiscal policies, and (3) fight corruption and promote democracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Zeaiter, Hussein & El-Khalil, Raed, 2016. "Extreme bounds of sovereign defaults: Evidence from the MENA region," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 391-410.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:41:y:2016:i:c:p:391-410
    DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2015.10.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1059056015001513
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.iref.2015.10.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ugo Panizza & Federico Sturzenegger & Jeromin Zettelmeyer, 2009. "The Economics and Law of Sovereign Debt and Default," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(3), pages 651-698, September.
    2. Emanuel Kohlscheen, 2010. "Sovereign risk: constitutions rule," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 62-85, January.
    3. Hajivassiliou, V A, 1994. "A Simulation Estimation Analysis of the External Debt Crises of Developing Countries," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(2), pages 109-131, April-Jun.
    4. Vassilis A. Hajivassiliou, 1989. "Do the Secondary Markets Believe in Life After Debt?," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 911, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    5. repec:kap:iaecre:v:17:y:2011:i:3:p:288-299 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Ayse Karayalcin & Tugrul Temel, 1988. "Debt Servicing Capacity of Developing Countries and the Case of Turkey," Discussion Papers 8810, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey.
    7. Levine, Ross & Renelt, David, 1992. "A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 942-963, September.
    8. Miguel Messmacher & Mark Kruger, 2004. "Sovereign Debt Defaults and Financing Needs," IMF Working Papers 2004/053, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Dicks-Mireaux, Louis & King, Mervyn, 1984. "Pension wealth and household savings: Tests of robustness," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1-2), pages 115-139.
    10. Snider, Lewis W., 1990. "The Political Performance of Third World Governments and the Debt Crisis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(4), pages 1263-1280, December.
    11. Cooley, Thomas F & LeRoy, Stephen F, 1981. "Identification and Estimation of Money Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 825-844, December.
    12. Neaime Simon, 2004. "Sustainability of Budget Deficits and Public Debt in Lebanon: A Stationarity and Co-Integration Analysis," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 42-60, April.
    13. Martin Gassebner & Michael J. Lamla & James Raymond Vreeland, 2013. "Extreme Bounds of Democracy," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 57(2), pages 171-197, April.
    14. Hussein F. Zeaiter* & Raed El Khalil & Khodr Fakih, 2015. "Economic development and sub-regional identities," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 49(1), pages 157-176, January-M.
    15. Jens Hilscher & Yves Nosbusch, 2010. "Determinants of Sovereign Risk: Macroeconomic Fundamentals and the Pricing of Sovereign Debt," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 14(2), pages 235-262.
    16. Danila Serra, 2006. "Empirical determinants of corruption: A sensitivity analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 126(1), pages 225-256, January.
    17. Chakrabarti, Avik, 2001. "The Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment: Sensitivity Analyses of Cross-Country Regressions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 89-113.
    18. Seung Jung Lee, 2009. "How Information Quality of Macro Aggregates Affects Sovereign Risk: An Empirical Investigation," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(3), pages 510-532, August.
    19. Rivoli, Pietra & Brewer, Thomas L., 1997. "Political instability and country risk," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 309-321.
    20. Chakrabarti, Avik & Zeaiter, Hussein, 2014. "The determinants of sovereign default: A sensitivity analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 300-318.
    21. Frank, Charles Jr. & Cline, William R., 1971. "Measurement of debt servicing capacity: An application of discriminant analysis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 327-344, August.
    22. Marcel Peter, 2002. "Estimating Default Probabilities of Emerging Market Sovereigns: A New Look at a Not-So-New Literature," IHEID Working Papers 06-2002, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    23. Berg, Andrew & Sachs, Jeffrey, 1988. "The debt crisis structural explanations of country performance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 271-306, November.
    24. International Monetary Fund, 1996. "The Economic Content of Indicators of Developing Country Creditworthiness," IMF Working Papers 1996/009, International Monetary Fund.
    25. Manfred Gärtner & Björn Griesbach & Florian Jung, 2011. "PIGS or Lambs? The European Sovereign Debt Crisis and the Role of Rating Agencies," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 17(3), pages 288-299, August.
    26. Jan- Sturm & Jakob de Haan, 2005. "Determinants of long-term growth: New results applying robust estimation and extreme bounds analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 597-617, October.
    27. Nadeem Ul Haque & Manmohan S. Kumar & Nelson Mark & Donald J. Mathieson, 1996. "The Economic Content of Indicators of Developing Country Creditworthiness," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 43(4), pages 688-724, December.
    28. Leamer, Edward E, 1983. "Let's Take the Con Out of Econometrics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(1), pages 31-43, March.
    29. Feder, Gershon & Uy, Lily V., 1985. "The determinants of international creditworthiness and their policy implications," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 133-156.
    30. Graham Bird & Dane Rowlands, 2001. "IMF lending: how is it affected by economic, political and institutional factors?," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(3), pages 243-270.
    31. Nicholas Sargen, 1977. "Economic indicators and country risk appraisal," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Fall, pages 19-35.
    32. Hajivassiliou, Vassilis A., 1987. "The external debt repayments problems of LDC's : An econometric model based on panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1-2), pages 205-230.
    33. Carmen A. Li, 1992. "Latin America: A case for debt relief and foreign aid?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(2), pages 217-231, March.
    34. John Aldrich, 2006. "When are inferences too fragile to be believed?," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 161-177.
    35. Ms. Enrica Detragiache & Mr. Antonio Spilimbergo, 2001. "Crises and Liquidity: Evidence and Interpretation," IMF Working Papers 2001/002, International Monetary Fund.
    36. Jakob de Haan & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2005. "Determinants of Long-term Growth: New Results Applying Roboust Estimation and Extreme Bounds," TWI Research Paper Series 12, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    37. Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1997. "I Just Ran Two Million Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 178-183, May.
    38. António Afonso & Pedro Gomes & Philipp Rother, 2006. "What “Hides” Behind Sovereign Debt Ratings?," Working Papers Department of Economics 2006/35, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    39. Citron, Joel-Tomas & Nickelsburg, Gerald, 1987. "Country risk and political instability," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 385-392, April.
    40. Mr. Bennett W Sutton & Mr. Luis Catão, 2002. "Sovereign Defaults: The Role of Volatility," IMF Working Papers 2002/149, International Monetary Fund.
    41. A. Georgievska & L. Georgievska & A. Stojanovic & N. Todorovic, 2008. "Sovereign rescheduling probabilities in emerging markets: a comparison with credit rating agencies' ratings," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(9), pages 1031-1051.
    42. Edwards, Sebastian, 1984. "LDC Foreign Borrowing and Default Risk: An Empirical Investigation, 1976-80," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(4), pages 726-734, September.
    43. Feder, Gershon & Just, Richard & Ross, Knud, 1981. "Projecting Debt Servicing Capacity of Developing Countries," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(5), pages 651-669, December.
    44. Erdal Karagol & Selami Sezgin, 2004. "DO defence expenditures increase debt rescheduling in Turkey? probit model approach," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(5), pages 471-480.
    45. Avik Chakrabarti, 2001. "The Determinants of Foreign Direct Investments: Sensitivity Analyses of Cross‐Country Regressions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 89-114, February.
    46. Lee, Suk Hun, 1991. "Ability and willingness to service debt as explanation for commercial and official rescheduling cases," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 5-27, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Miroslav Mateev, 2019. "Regulation and ownership effect on banks performance: New Evidence from the MENA region," Proceedings of Economics and Finance Conferences 8911196, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    2. Tjeerd M. Boonman & Andrea E. Sanchez Urbina, 2020. "Extreme Bounds Analysis in Early Warning Systems for Currency Crises," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 431-470, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chakrabarti, Avik & Zeaiter, Hussein, 2014. "The determinants of sovereign default: A sensitivity analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 300-318.
    2. Zeaiter, Hussein Zeaiter, 2013. "Sovereign Debt Defaults: Evidence using Extreme bounds Analysis," Working Papers 32/2013, Universidade Portucalense, Centro de Investigação em Gestão e Economia (CIGE).
    3. Moreno Badia, Marialuz & Medas, Paulo & Gupta, Pranav & Xiang, Yuan, 2022. "Debt is not free," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    4. Kalotychou, Elena & Staikouras, Sotiris K., 2006. "An empirical investigation of the loan concentration risk in Latin America," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 363-384, October.
    5. Jelena Laušev & Aleksandar Stojanović & Nataša Todorović, 2011. "Determinants Of Debt Rescheduling In Eastern European Countries," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 56(188), pages 7-31, January –.
    6. Ana-Maria Fuertes & Elena Kalotychou, 2004. "Forecasting sovereign default using panel models: A comparative analysis," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 228, Society for Computational Economics.
    7. John Inekwe, 2018. "Financial crises and the extreme bounds of predictors," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 2047-2067, December.
    8. Marie Poprawe, 2015. "On the relationship between corruption and migration: empirical evidence from a gravity model of migration," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 337-354, June.
    9. Melisa Chanegriha & Chris Stewart & Christopher Tsoukis, 2017. "Identifying the robust economic, geographical and political determinants of FDI: an Extreme Bounds Analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 759-776, March.
    10. Jens Hilscher & Yves Nosbusch, 2010. "Determinants of Sovereign Risk: Macroeconomic Fundamentals and the Pricing of Sovereign Debt," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 14(2), pages 235-262.
    11. Hashmi, Rimsha Karim & Qayyum, Abdul, 2016. "Estimating the Long-Run Creditworthiness of Pakistan," MPRA Paper 70529, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Martin Gassebner & Simon Luechinger, 2011. "Lock, stock, and barrel: a comprehensive assessment of the determinants of terror," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 235-261, December.
    13. Narjess Boubakri & Jean-Claude Cosset & Houcem Smaoui, 2011. "Political Institutions and Sovereign Credit Spreads," Working Papers 647, Economic Research Forum, revised 12 Jan 2011.
    14. Yang, Haisheng & He, Jie & Chen, Shaoling, 2015. "The fragility of the Environmental Kuznets Curve: Revisiting the hypothesis with Chinese data via an “Extreme Bound Analysis”," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 41-58.
    15. Martin Gassebner & Jerg Gutmann & Stefan Voigt, 2016. "When to expect a coup d’état? An extreme bounds analysis of coup determinants," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 293-313, December.
    16. C. Hopp & A. Dreher, 2013. "Do differences in institutional and legal environments explain cross-country variations in IPO underpricing?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(4), pages 435-454, February.
    17. Fuchs, Andreas & Dreher, Axel & Nunnenkamp, Peter, 2014. "Determinants of Donor Generosity: A Survey of the Aid Budget Literature," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 172-199.
    18. Axel Dreher & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2012. "Do the IMF and the World Bank influence voting in the UN General Assembly?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 363-397, April.
    19. repec:diw:diwfin:diwfin03050 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Jochen Hartwig & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2018. "Testing the Grossman model of medical spending determinants with macroeconomic panel data," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(8), pages 1067-1086, November.
    21. Martin Gassebner & Noel Gaston & Michael J Lamla, 2008. "Relief For The Environment? The Importance Of An Increasingly Unimportant Industrial Sector," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 46(2), pages 160-178, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Extreme bounds analysis; MENA indebted countries; Sovereign debt;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:reveco:v:41:y:2016:i:c:p:391-410. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620165 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.