Self-inflicted Debt Crises

In a dynamic model of optimal bailouts, we show how borrower myopia affects the severity of debt crises. Myopic borrowers misprice the option to default with a U-shaped negative pricing error. The myopia discount changes the optimal bailout policy. Myopia gets punished when the distortions from default mispricing outweigh the future bailout costs, resulting in procrastinated default and protracted crises. The model shows that (i) myopia is an important determinant for bailout policy, (ii) myopic default can be cheaper to resolve than rational default, (iii) rational agents can benefit from a myopic sovereign borrower, and (iv) credit spread dynamics are more asymmetric under myopia than rationality, consistent with empirical evidence.