IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ibn/assjnl/v16y2020i12p93.html

Elements of Sovereign-Debt Default in the MENA Region

Author

Listed:
  • Nicholas Bitar

Abstract

In the past half-century, the MENA region has witnessed several political uproars, varying between internal instability and conflict to external assaults and disputes. Studies conducted on developing countries have shown that political risk factors have, one way or another, rushed the governments’ decision to default on their debt. The purpose of this study is to examine the significance of the determinants of sovereign debt default. The aim here is to find the correct set of independent variables, whose effect is significant and are agreed upon generally in the literature. The empirical study is a panel data that samples 35 years 1984-2018 for all MENA countries. From the political perspective, I find that corruption and cohesion are the factors that stand behind sovereign debt default. From the economic standpoint, inflation and debt to GDP ratio are significant and positively related indicators to sovereign debt defaults. Whereas, trade openness is significant and negatively related. Moreover, the results reveal that GDP growth is insignificant, this finding contradicts the literature of the determinants of sovereign debt.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicholas Bitar, 2020. "Elements of Sovereign-Debt Default in the MENA Region," Asian Social Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 16(12), pages 1-93, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:ibn:assjnl:v:16:y:2020:i:12:p:93
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ass/article/download/0/0/44320/46714
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ass/article/view/0/44320
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manasse, Paolo & Roubini, Nouriel, 2009. ""Rules of thumb" for sovereign debt crises," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 192-205, July.
    2. Nicholas Bitar, 2020. "The Aftermath of the Tariff War on China," Asian Social Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 16(2), pages 1-22, February.
    3. 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.
    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. Moreno Badia, Marialuz & Medas, Paulo & Gupta, Pranav & Xiang, Yuan, 2022. "Debt is not free," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    2. Tamás Kristóf, 2021. "Sovereign Default Forecasting in the Era of the COVID-19 Crisis," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-24, October.
    3. Thanh C. Nguyen & Vítor Castro & Justine Wood, 2022. "Political environment and financial crises," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 417-438, January.
    4. Faria, Andr & Mauro, Paolo, 2009. "Institutions and the external capital structure of countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 367-391, April.
    5. 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.
    6. Silvia Marchesi & Tania Masi, 2019. "Sovereign risk after sovereign restructuring. Private and official default," Working Papers 423, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2019.
    7. Agnė Šimelytė & Jūratė Antanavičienė, 2013. "Economic development and its influence on state capital structure," Post-Print hal-01694339, HAL.
    8. Sebastian M. Saiegh, 2009. "Coalition Governments And Sovereign Debt Crises," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 232-254, July.
    9. Ghosal, Sayantan & Thampanishvong, Kannika, 2013. "Does strengthening Collective Action Clauses (CACs) help?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 68-78.
    10. repec:rnp:ppaper:2309 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Stefan Eichler & Jannik André Nauerth, 2025. "Bilateral investment treaties and sovereign default risk: Evidence for emerging markets," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(2), pages 1803-1830, April.
    12. Reinhart, Carmen & Trebesch, Christoph, 2014. "A Distant Mirror of Debt, Default, and Relief," CEPR Discussion Papers 10195, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    13. Döpke, Jörg & Fritsche, Ulrich & Pierdzioch, Christian, 2017. "Predicting recessions with boosted regression trees," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 745-759.
    14. Merve Kırkıl, 2021. "Sovereign Credit Risk Rating: Examining the Relations between Domestic Economy Data and the Probability of Default," Journal of Economic Policy Researches, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 57-74, January.
    15. Laura Alfaro & Fabio Kanczuk, 2006. "Deuda soberana: indexación y vencimiento," Research Department Publications 4460, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    16. Chamon, Marcos & Mauro, Paolo, 2006. "Pricing growth-indexed bonds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(12), pages 3349-3366, December.
    17. Marchesi, Silvia & Masi, Tania, 2021. "Life after default. Private and official deals," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    18. Wolfgang Nierhaus & Timo Wollmershäuser, 2016. "ifo Konjunkturumfragen und Konjunkturanalyse: Band II," ifo Forschungsberichte, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 72.
    19. Anastasios Petropoulos & Vasilis Siakoulis & Evangelos Stavroulakis, 2022. "Towards an early warning system for sovereign defaults leveraging on machine learning methodologies," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 118-129, April.
    20. Mr. Markus Eberhardt & Mr. Andrea F Presbitero, 2013. "This Time They Are Different: Heterogeneity and Nonlinearity in the Relationship Between Debt and Growth," IMF Working Papers 2013/248, International Monetary Fund.
    21. Ismet GOCER & Mehmet MERCAN, 2016. "Which country after Greece? Sustainability of budget deficits in selected EU countries: A panel cointegration analysis with multiple structural breaks under cross-section dependence," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(3(608), A), pages 205-220, Autumn.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    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:ibn:assjnl:v:16:y:2020:i:12:p:93. 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: Canadian Center of Science and Education (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepflch.html .

    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.