IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/rfinst/v38y2025i8p2326-2361..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who Holds Sovereign Debt and Why It Matters

Author

Listed:
  • Xiang Fang
  • Bryan Hardy
  • Karen K Lewis

Abstract

This paper studies whether investor composition affects the sovereign debt market. We construct a data set of sovereign debt holdings by foreign and domestic bank, nonbank private and official investors for 101 countries across three decades. Compared with other investors, private nonbank investors absorb a disproportionate share of the debt supply, and their demand for emerging market debt is most price responsive. A counterfactual analysis of emerging market sovereigns shows a 10% increase in debt leads to a 5.8% yield increase but an outsized 8.4% increase without nonbank investors. We conclude that sovereigns are vulnerable to the loss of nonbanks.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiang Fang & Bryan Hardy & Karen K Lewis, 2025. "Who Holds Sovereign Debt and Why It Matters," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 38(8), pages 2326-2361.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:38:y:2025:i:8:p:2326-2361.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hhaf031
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matteo Maggiori & Brent Neiman & Jesse Schreger, 2020. "International Currencies and Capital Allocation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2019-2066.
    2. Stephanie E. Curcuru & Charles P. Thomas & Francis E. Warnock & Jon Wongswan, 2011. "US International Equity Investment and Past and Prospective Returns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3440-3455, December.
    3. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2012. "The Aggregate Demand for Treasury Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(2), pages 233-267.
    4. Javier Bianchi & Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez, 2018. "International Reserves and Rollover Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2629-2670, September.
    5. Xavier Gabaix & Matteo Maggiori, 2015. "International Liquidity and Exchange Rate Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(3), pages 1369-1420.
    6. Luc Laeven & Fabian Valencia, 2020. "Systemic Banking Crises Database II," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 68(2), pages 307-361, June.
    7. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Hélène Rey, 2007. "International Financial Adjustment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(4), pages 665-703, August.
    8. Emmanuel Farhi & Jean Tirole, 2018. "Deadly Embrace: Sovereign and Financial Balance Sheets Doom Loops," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(3), pages 1781-1823.
    9. Ralph S J Koijen & Robert J Richmond & Motohiro Yogo, 2024. "Which Investors Matter for Equity Valuations and Expected Returns?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(4), pages 2387-2424.
    10. Reinhart, Carmen & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2009. "This Time It’s Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly-Chapter 1," MPRA Paper 17452, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. 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.
    12. Nicola Gennaioli & Alberto Martin & Stefano Rossi, 2014. "Sovereign Default, Domestic Banks, and Financial Institutions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(2), pages 819-866, April.
    13. 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.
    14. Juan J. Cruces & Christoph Trebesch, 2013. "Sovereign Defaults: The Price of Haircuts," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 85-117, July.
    15. Mark Aguiar & Gita Gopinath, 2007. "Emerging Market Business Cycles: The Cycle Is the Trend," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(1), pages 69-102.
    16. Koijen, Ralph & Yogo, Motohiro, 2020. "Exchange Rates and Asset Prices in a Global Demand System," CEPR Discussion Papers 14874, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Philip D Wooldridge, 2006. "The changing composition of official reserves," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, September.
    18. Laeven, Luc & Valencia, Fabian, 2020. "Systemic Banking Crises Database: A Timely Update in COVID-19 Times," CEPR Discussion Papers 14569, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Javier Bianchi & César Sosa-Padilla, 2024. "Reserve Accumulation, Macroeconomic Stabilization, and Sovereign Risk," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(4), pages 2053-2103.
    20. Stefan Avdjiev & Bryan Hardy & Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan & Luis Servén, 2022. "Gross Capital Flows by Banks, Corporates, and Sovereigns," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(5), pages 2098-2135.
    21. Atish R. Ghosh & Jonathan D. Ostry & Charalambos G. Tsangarides, 2017. "Shifting Motives: Explaining the Buildup in Official Reserves in Emerging Markets Since the 1980s," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 65(2), pages 308-364, June.
    22. Koijen, Ralph S.J. & Koulischer, François & Nguyen, Benoît & Yogo, Motohiro, 2021. "Inspecting the mechanism of quantitative easing in the euro area," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 1-20.
    23. Valentina Bruno & Hyun Song Shin, 2015. "Cross-Border Banking and Global Liquidity," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(2), pages 535-564.
    24. V. V. Chari & Alessandro Dovis & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2020. "On the Optimality of Financial Repression," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(2), pages 710-739.
    25. Cristina Arellano, 2008. "Default Risk and Income Fluctuations in Emerging Economies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 690-712, June.
    26. Mert Onen & Hyun Song Shin & Goetz von Peter, 2023. "Overcoming original sin: insights from a new dataset," BIS Working Papers 1075, Bank for International Settlements.
    27. Dominguez, Kathryn M.E. & Hashimoto, Yuko & Ito, Takatoshi, 2012. "International reserves and the global financial crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 388-406.
    28. Luigi Bocola, 2016. "The Pass-Through of Sovereign Risk," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(4), pages 879-926.
    29. Cristina Arellano & Gabriel Mihalache & Yan Bai, 2018. "Inflation Targeting with Sovereign Default Risk," 2018 Meeting Papers 851, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    30. Ralph S. J. Koijen & Motohiro Yogo, 2019. "A Demand System Approach to Asset Pricing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1475-1515.
    31. 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.
    32. Zhengyang Jiang & Arvind Krishnamurthy & Hanno Lustig, 2018. "Foreign Safe Asset Demand for US Treasurys and the Dollar," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 108, pages 537-541, May.
    33. Mr. Serkan Arslanalp & Mr. Takahiro Tsuda, 2014. "Tracking Global Demand for Emerging Market Sovereign Debt," IMF Working Papers 2014/039, International Monetary Fund.
    34. Pablo Garcia Luna & Bryan Hardy, 2019. "Non-bank counterparties in international banking," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, September.
    35. Wenxin Du & Jesse Schreger, 2016. "Local Currency Sovereign Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(3), pages 1027-1070, June.
    36. Ralph S. J. Koijen & Robert J. Richmond & Motohiro Yogo, 2020. "Which Investors Matter for Global Equity Valuations and Expected Returns?," Working Papers 2020-34, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    37. Mr. Serkan Arslanalp & Laura Sunder-Plassmann, 2022. "Sovereign Debt Repatriation During Crises," IMF Working Papers 2022/077, International Monetary Fund.
    38. Mr. Serkan Arslanalp & Mr. Takahiro Tsuda, 2012. "Tracking Global Demand for Advanced Economy Sovereign Debt," IMF Working Papers 2012/284, International Monetary Fund.
    39. Zhengyang Jiang & Robert J. Richmond & Tony Zhang, 2022. "A Portfolio Approach to Global Imbalances," NBER Working Papers 30253, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    40. Bryan Hardy & Sonya Zhu, 2023. "Covid, central banks and the bank-sovereign nexus," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    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. António Afonso & José Alves & Sofia Monteiro, 2025. "Echoes of instability: how geopolitical risks shape government debt holdings," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 1-28, June.
    2. Baṣkaya, Yusuf Soner & Hardy, Bryan & Kalemli-Özcan, Ṣebnem & Yue, Vivian, 2024. "Sovereign risk and bank lending: Evidence from 1999 Turkish Earthquake," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    3. Sebastián Horn & David Mihaly & Philipp Nickol & César Sosa-Padilla, 2024. "Hidden Debt Revelations," Working Papers 338, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    4. Matias Moretti & Lorenzo Pandolfi & Sergio L. Schmukler & Germán Villegas Bauer & Tomás Williams, 2024. "Inelastic Demand Meets Optimal Supply of Risky Sovereign Bonds," CSEF Working Papers 713, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 13 Oct 2025.
    5. Ahmed, Rashad & Rebucci, Alessandro, 2024. "Dollar reserves and U.S. yields: Identifying the price impact of official flows," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    6. Hack, Lukas & Diebold, Lukas, 2025. "Loanly Governments: Sovereign Debt in the Wake of Credit Downgrades," VfS Annual Conference 2025 (Cologne): Revival of Industrial Policy 325387, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Castells-Jauregui, Madalen & Kuvshinov, Dmitry & Richter, Björn & Vanasco, Victoria, 2025. "Foreign demand for safety and macroeconomic instability," Working Paper Series 3126, European Central Bank.
    8. Gamboa-Estrada, Fredy & Sanchez-Jabba, Andres, 2024. "The effects of foreign investor composition on Colombia's sovereign debt flows," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    9. Claudio Borio & Marc Farag & Fabrizio Zampolli, 2023. "Tackling the fiscal policy-financial stability nexus," BIS Working Papers 1090, Bank for International Settlements.
    10. António Afonso & José Alves & Sofia Monteiro, 2023. "Banks’ portfolio of government debt and sovereign risk," Working Papers REM 2023/0289, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    11. Mauricio Villamizar-Villegas & Lucía Arango-Lozano & Geraldine Castelblanco & Nicolás Fajardo-Baquero & Maria A. Ruiz-Sanchez, 2022. "The effects of Monetary Policy on Capital Flows A Meta-Analysis," Borradores de Economia 1204, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    12. Bryan Hardy & Sonya Zhu, 2023. "Covid, central banks and the bank-sovereign nexus," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    13. Egemen Eren & Philip Wooldridge, 2022. "The role of non-bank financial institutions in cross-border spillovers," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 129.
    14. Iñaki Aldasoro & Sebastian Doerr, 2023. "Who borrows from money market funds?," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, December.
    15. Mert Onen & Hyun Song Shin & Goetz von Peter, 2023. "Overcoming original sin: insights from a new dataset," BIS Working Papers 1075, Bank for International Settlements.
    16. Kamps, Christophe & Bussière, Matthieu & Niessner, Birgit & Tristani, Oreste & Christoffel, Kai & Kapadia, Sujit & Ferrero, Giuseppe & Gilbert, Niels & Vlassopoulos, Thomas & Motto, Roberto & Gerke, R, 2025. "Report on monetary policy tools, strategy and communication," Occasional Paper Series 372, European Central Bank.
    17. Longaric, Pablo Anaya & Cera, Katharina & Georgiadis, Georgios & Kaufmann, Christoph, 2025. "Investment funds and euro disaster risk," Working Paper Series 3029, European Central Bank.
    18. Matteo Aquilina & Andreas Schrimpf & Karamfil Todorov, 2023. "CP and CDs markets: a primer," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, September.
    19. Betz, Timm & Pond, Amy, 2023. "Democratic institutions and regulatory privileges for government debt," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    20. Graziano, Marco & Habib, Maurizio Michael, 2024. "Mutual funds and safe government bonds: do returns matter?," Working Paper Series 2931, European Central Bank.
    21. Pelizzon, Loriana & Subrahmanyam, Marti G. & Tomio, Davide, 2025. "Central Bank–Driven Mispricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    22. Yusuf Soner Başkaya & Bryan Hardy & Ṣebnem Kalemli-Özcan & Vivian Z. Yue, 2023. "Sovereign Risk and Bank Lending: Theory and Evidence from a Natural Disaster," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2023-01, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    23. Villamizar-Villegas, Mauricio & Arango-Lozano, Lucía & Castelblanco, Geraldine & Fajardo-Baquero, Nicolás & Ruiz-Sanchez, Maria A., 2024. "The Effects of Monetary Policy on Capital Flows: An Emerging Market Survey," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    24. Afonso, António & Alves, José & Monteiro, Sofia, 2024. "Banks’ portfolio of government debt and sovereign risk: From safe havens to stormy seas," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).

    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. Ricardo Sabbadini, 2017. "Overcoming the Original Sin: Gains from Local Currency External Debt," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2017_27, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    2. Engler, Philipp & Große Steffen, Christoph, 2016. "Sovereign risk, interbank freezes, and aggregate fluctuations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 34-61.
    3. Zhengyang Jiang & Robert J. Richmond & Tony Zhang, 2024. "A Portfolio Approach to Global Imbalances," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(3), pages 2025-2076, June.
    4. Coimbra, Nuno, 2020. "Sovereigns at risk: A dynamic model of sovereign debt and banking leverage," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    5. Ricardo Sabbadini, 2018. "International Reserves Management in a Model of Partial Sovereign Default," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2018_14, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    6. Goldberg, Linda S. & Krogstrup, Signe, 2023. "International capital flow pressures and global factors," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    7. Josefin Meyer & Carmen M Reinhart & Christoph Trebesch, 2022. "Sovereign Bonds Since Waterloo," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(3), pages 1615-1680.
    8. Claudio Borio & Marc Farag & Fabrizio Zampolli, 2023. "Tackling the fiscal policy-financial stability nexus," BIS Working Papers 1090, Bank for International Settlements.
    9. Juan M. Morelli & Pablo Ottonello & Diego J. Perez, 2022. "Global Banks and Systemic Debt Crises," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(2), pages 749-798, March.
    10. Kuvshinov, Dmitry & Zimmermann, Kaspar, 2019. "Sovereigns going bust: Estimating the cost of default," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 1-21.
    11. Trebesch, Christoph & Zabel, Michael, 2017. "The output costs of hard and soft sovereign default," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 416-432.
    12. Bocola, Luigi & Bornstein, Gideon & Dovis, Alessandro, 2019. "Quantitative sovereign default models and the European debt crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 20-30.
    13. Tavares, Tiago, 2025. "The role of international reserves in sovereign debt restructuring under fiscal adjustment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    14. Jeon, Kiyoung & Kabukcuoglu, Zeynep, 2018. "Income inequality and sovereign default," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 211-232.
    15. Maeng, F. S., 2024. "Default, Inflation Expectations, and the Currency Denomination of Sovereign Bonds," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2438, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    16. Aguiar, Mark & Amador, Manuel, 2014. "Sovereign Debt," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 647-687, Elsevier.
    17. Cristina Arellano & Gabriel Mihalache & Yan Bai, 2018. "Inflation Targeting with Sovereign Default Risk," 2018 Meeting Papers 851, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & César Sosa-Padilla, 2016. "Debt Dilution and Sovereign Default Risk," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(5), pages 1383-1422.
    19. Mark Aguiar & Manuel Amador, 2013. "Sovereign Debt: A Review," NBER Working Papers 19388, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Javier Bianchi & Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez, 2018. "International Reserves and Rollover Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2629-2670, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

    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:oup:rfinst:v:38:y:2025:i:8:p:2326-2361.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfsssea.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.