IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/12921.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Dynamics of Sovereign Debt Crises and Bailouts

Author

Listed:
  • Uhlig, Harald
  • Roch, Francisco

Abstract

Motivated by the recent European debt crisis, this paper investigates the scope for a bailout guarantee in a sovereign debt crisis. Defaults may arise from negative income shocks, government impatience or a "sunspot"-coordinated buyers strike. We introduce a bailout agency, and characterize the strategy with the minimal actuarially fair intervention which guarantees the no-buyers-strike fundamental equilibrium, relying on the market for residual financing. The intervention makes it cheaper for governments to borrow, inducing them borrow more, leaving default probabilities possibly rather unchanged. The maximal backstop will be pulled precisely when fundamentals worsen.

Suggested Citation

  • Uhlig, Harald & Roch, Francisco, 2018. "The Dynamics of Sovereign Debt Crises and Bailouts," CEPR Discussion Papers 12921, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12921
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP12921
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & Francisco Roch, 2012. "Fiscal rules and the sovereign default premium," Working Paper 12-01, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    2. Fink, Fabian & Scholl, Almuth, 2016. "A quantitative model of sovereign debt, bailouts and conditionality," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 176-190.
    3. Satyajit Chatterjee & Burcu Eyigungor, 2011. "A Quantitative Analysis of the US Housing and Mortgage Markets and the Mortgage Crisis," 2011 Meeting Papers 1109, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Cooper, Russell & Kempf, Hubert & Peled, Dan, 2010. "Regional debt in monetary unions: Is it inflationary?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 345-358, April.
    5. Luzzetti, Matthew N. & Neumuller, Seth, 2016. "Learning and the dynamics of consumer unsecured debt and bankruptcies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 22-39.
    6. Satyajit Chatterjee & Burcu Eyigungor, 2015. "A Quantitative Analysis of the US Housing and Mortgage Markets and the Foreclosure Crisis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(2), pages 165-184, April.
    7. David Benjamin & Mark L. J. Wright, 2009. "Recovery before redemption: A theory of delays in sovereign debt renegotiations," CAMA Working Papers 2009-15, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    8. Hatchondo, Juan Carlos & Martinez, Leonardo, 2009. "Long-duration bonds and sovereign defaults," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 117-125, September.
    9. Calvo, Guillermo A, 1988. "Servicing the Public Debt: The Role of Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 647-661, September.
    10. Arghyrou, Michael G. & Kontonikas, Alexandros, 2012. "The EMU sovereign-debt crisis: Fundamentals, expectations and contagion," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 658-677.
    11. Juan Carlos Conesa & Timothy J. Kehoe, 2017. "Gambling for redemption and self-fulfilling debt crises," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 64(4), pages 707-740, December.
    12. D’Erasmo, P. & Mendoza, E.G. & Zhang, J., 2016. "What is a Sustainable Public Debt?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2493-2597, Elsevier.
    13. Aguiar, Mark & Gopinath, Gita, 2006. "Defaultable debt, interest rates and the current account," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 64-83, June.
    14. Cristina Arellano & Ananth Ramanarayanan, 2012. "Default and the Maturity Structure in Sovereign Bonds," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(2), pages 187-232.
    15. Enrique G. Mendoza & Vivian Z. Yue, 2012. "A General Equilibrium Model of Sovereign Default and Business Cycles," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(2), pages 889-946.
    16. Harold L. Cole & Timothy J. Kehoe, 2000. "Self-Fulfilling Debt Crises," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(1), pages 91-116.
    17. Boz, Emine, 2011. "Sovereign default, private sector creditors, and the IFIs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 70-82, January.
    18. Poplawski Ribeiro, Marcos & Beetsma, Roel, 2008. "The political economy of structural reforms under a deficit restriction," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 179-198, March.
    19. Luis-Fernando Mejía & Guillermo A. Calvo & Alejandro Izquierdo, 2004. "On the empirics of Sudden Stops: the relevance of balance-sheet effects," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Jun.
    20. Del Negro, Marco & Sims, Christopher A., 2015. "When does a central bank׳s balance sheet require fiscal support?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-19.
    21. Broner, Fernando & Erce, Aitor & Martin, Alberto & Ventura, Jaume, 2014. "Sovereign debt markets in turbulent times: Creditor discrimination and crowding-out effects," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 114-142.
    22. Giancarlo Corsetti & Luca Dedola, 2016. "The Mystery of the Printing Press: Monetary Policy and Self-Fulfilling Debt Crises," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(6), pages 1329-1371.
    23. Guido Lorenzoni & Iván Werning, 2019. "Slow Moving Debt Crises," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(9), pages 3229-3263, September.
    24. Mark Aguiar & Manuel Amador & Emmanuel Farhi & Gita Gopinath, 2013. "Crisis and Commitment: Inflation Credibility and the Vulnerability to Sovereign Debt Crises," Working Papers 2013-4, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    25. Harold L. Cole & Timothy J. Kehoe, 1996. "A self-fulfilling model of Mexico's 1994-95 debt crisis," Staff Report 210, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    26. J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), 2016. "Handbook of Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    27. Luigi Bocola & Alessandro Dovis, 2019. "Self-Fulfilling Debt Crises: A Quantitative Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(12), pages 4343-4377, December.
    28. Aguiar, M. & Chatterjee, S. & Cole, H. & Stangebye, Z., 2016. "Quantitative Models of Sovereign Debt Crises," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1697-1755, Elsevier.
    29. Florian Kirsch & Ronald Rühmkorf, 2017. "Sovereign borrowing, financial assistance, and debt repudiation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 64(4), pages 777-804, December.
    30. Juan Carlos Conesa & Timothy J. Kehoe, 2014. "Is It Too Late to Bail Out the Troubled Countries in the Eurozone?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 88-93, May.
    31. Cole, Harold L. & Kehoe, Timothy J., 1996. "A self-fulfilling model of Mexico's 1994-1995 debt crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-4), pages 309-330, November.
    32. Kyle F. Herkenhoff & Lee E. Ohanian, 2012. "Foreclosure delay and U.S. unemployment," Working Papers 2012-017, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    33. Falko Juessen & Andreas Schabert, 2013. "Fiscal Policy, Sovereign Default, and Bailouts," Working Paper Series in Economics 67, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    34. Cristina Arellano, 2008. "Default Risk and Income Fluctuations in Emerging Economies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 690-712, June.
    35. International Monetary Fund, 2015. "Portugal: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2015/127, International Monetary Fund.
    36. Ignacio Presno & Demian Pouzo, 2014. "Optimal Taxation with Endogenous Default under Incomplete Markets," 2014 Meeting Papers 689, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    37. Philippe Bacchetta & Elena Perazzi & Eric van Wincoop, 2015. "Self-Fulfilling Debt Crises: Can Monetary Policy Really Help?," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 15.06, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    38. Lars Ljungqvist & Thomas J. Sargent, 2004. "Recursive Macroeconomic Theory, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 026212274x, December.
    39. Kriwoluzky, Alexander & Müller, Gernot J. & Wolf, Martin, 2019. "Exit expectations and debt crises in currency unions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    40. Arjan M. Lejour & Jasper Lukkezen & Paul Veenendaal, 2011. "Sustainability of Government Debt in the EMU," Chapters, in: Wim Meeusen (ed.), The Economic Crisis and European Integration, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    41. Jonathan Eaton & Mark Gersovitz, 1981. "Debt with Potential Repudiation: Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 48(2), pages 289-309.
    42. Beetsma, Roel & Uhlig, Harald, 1999. "An Analysis of the Stability and Growth Pact," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(458), pages 546-571, October.
    43. Giancarlo Corsetti & Luca Dedola, 2012. "The "Mystery of the Printing Press" Monetary Policy and Self-fulfilling Debt Crises," Discussion Papers 1424, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM), revised Aug 2014.
    44. Ariel Zetlin-Jones & Gaetano Gaballo, 2016. "Bailouts, Moral Hazard, and Banks’ Home Bias for Sovereign Debt," 2016 Meeting Papers 876, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Javier Bianchi & Jorge Mondragon, 2022. "Monetary Independence and Rollover Crises," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(1), pages 435-491.
    2. Stangebye, Zachary R., 2020. "Beliefs and long-maturity sovereign debt," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    3. Galo Nuño & Carlos Thomas, 2015. "Monetary policy and sovereign debt vulnerability," Working Papers 1517, Banco de España.
    4. Giancarlo Corsetti, 2023. "Debt crises, fast and slow Giancarlo," RSCAS Working Papers 2023/15, European University Institute.
    5. Aguiar, M. & Chatterjee, S. & Cole, H. & Stangebye, Z., 2016. "Quantitative Models of Sovereign Debt Crises," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1697-1755, Elsevier.
    6. Joao Ayres & Gaston Navarro & Juan Pablo Nicolini & Pedro Teles, 2019. "Self-Fulfilling Debt Crises with Long Stagnations," Working Papers 757, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    7. Stangebye, Zachary, 2015. "Dynamic Panics: Theory and Application to the Eurozone," MPRA Paper 69967, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Corsetti, G. & Erce, A. & Uy, T., 2018. "Debt Sustainability and the Terms of Official Support," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1864, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    9. Szkup, Michal, 2017. "Preventing Self-fulfilling debt crises," MPRA Paper 82754, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Galli, Carlo, 2021. "Self-fulfilling debt crises, fiscal policy and investment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    11. Michal Szkup, 2022. "Preventing Self-Fulfilling Debt Crises: A Global Games Approach," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 43, pages 22-55, January.
    12. Illenin Kondo & Fabrizio Perri & Sewon Hur, 2016. "Inflation, Debt, and Default," 2016 Meeting Papers 1610, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Engler, Philipp & Große Steffen, Christoph, 2016. "Sovereign risk, interbank freezes, and aggregate fluctuations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 34-61.
    14. Juan Carlos Conesa & Timothy J. Kehoe, 2017. "Gambling for redemption and self-fulfilling debt crises," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 64(4), pages 707-740, December.
    15. Mark Aguiar & Satyajit Chatterjee & Harold Cole & Zachary Stangebye, 2022. "Self-Fulfilling Debt Crises, Revisited," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(5), pages 1147-1183.
    16. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Maeng, Seung Hyun, 2020. "Debt Crises, Fast and Slow," CEPR Discussion Papers 14868, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Stefan Niemann & Paul Pichler, 2020. "Optimal fiscal policy and sovereign debt crises," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 37, pages 234-254, July.
    18. Mihalache, Gabriel, 2020. "Sovereign default resolution through maturity extension," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    19. Florian Kirsch & Ronald Rühmkorf, 2017. "Sovereign borrowing, financial assistance, and debt repudiation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 64(4), pages 777-804, December.
    20. Bernardo Guimaraes & Lucas Tumkus, 2020. "On the costs of sovereign default in quantitative models," Discussion Papers 2021, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Default; Bailouts; Self-fulfilling crises; Endogenous borrowing constraints; Long-term debt; Omt; Eurozone debt crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:12921. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.