IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mcm/deptwp/2018-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Debt, Defaults and Dogma: politics and the dynamics of sovereign debt markets

Author

Listed:
  • Johnny Cotoc
  • Alok Johri
  • Cesar Sosa-Padilla

Abstract

Using data from 40 nations, we obtain new stylized facts regarding the impact of polit- ical leanings of the ruling government on sovereign debt yields and fiscal policy. Left- wing governments' yields are 166 basis points higher and 23% more volatile than yields of right-wing governments. Moreover, left-wing governments face more counter-cyclical yields. Left-wing governments have higher levels of government spending and right-wing governments collect lower tax revenue as a percent of GDP. A calibrated sovereign de- fault model with elections and two politically heterogeneous policy makers who differ in the marginal impact of their fiscal choices on their re-election probabilities delivers the above-mentioned facts.

Suggested Citation

  • Johnny Cotoc & Alok Johri & Cesar Sosa-Padilla, 2018. "Debt, Defaults and Dogma: politics and the dynamics of sovereign debt markets," Department of Economics Working Papers 2018-13, McMaster University.
    • Handle: RePEc:mcm:deptwp:2018-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/rsrch/papers/archive/2018-13.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scholl, Almuth, 2017. "The dynamics of sovereign default risk and political turnover," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 37-53.
    2. Gabriel Cuadra & Juan Sanchez & Horacio Sapriza, 2010. "Fiscal Policy and Default Risk in Emerging Markets," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(2), pages 452-469, April.
    3. Núria Bosch & Albert Solé-Ollé, 2007. "Yardstick competition and the political costs of raising taxes: An empirical analysis of Spanish municipalities," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(1), pages 71-92, February.
    4. Ana L. De La O, 2013. "Do Conditional Cash Transfers Affect Electoral Behavior? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Mexico," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(1), pages 1-14, January.
    5. Uribe, Martin & Yue, Vivian Z., 2006. "Country spreads and emerging countries: Who drives whom?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 6-36, June.
    6. Neumeyer, Pablo A. & Perri, Fabrizio, 2005. "Business cycles in emerging economies: the role of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 345-380, March.
    7. Dahlberg, Matz & Johansson, Eva, 2002. "On the Vote-Purchasing Behavior of Incumbent Governments," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 96(1), pages 27-40, March.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Cerda, Rodrigo & Vergara, Rodrigo, 2008. "Government Subsidies and Presidential Election Outcomes: Evidence for a Developing Country," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 2470-2488, November.
    11. Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & Horacio Sapriza, 2009. "Heterogeneous Borrowers In Quantitative Models Of Sovereign Default," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1129-1151, November.
    12. Cristina Arellano, 2008. "Default Risk and Income Fluctuations in Emerging Economies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 690-712, June.
    13. Levitt, Steven D & Snyder, James M, Jr, 1997. "The Impact of Federal Spending on House Election Outcomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 30-53, February.
    14. Besley, Timothy & Case, Anne, 1995. "Incumbent Behavior: Vote-Seeking, Tax-Setting, and Yardstick Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 25-45, March.
    15. Adi Brender & Allan Drazen, 2008. "How Do Budget Deficits and Economic Growth Affect Reelection Prospects? Evidence from a Large Panel of Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 2203-2220, December.
    16. Cuadra, Gabriel & Sapriza, Horacio, 2008. "Sovereign default, interest rates and political uncertainty in emerging markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 78-88, September.
    17. 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.
    18. Stuart Landon & David L. Ryan, 1997. "The Political Costs of Taxes and Government Spending," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 30(1), pages 85-111, February.
    19. Arulampalam, Wiji & Dasgupta, Sugato & Dhillon, Amrita & Dutta, Bhaskar, 2009. "Electoral goals and center-state transfers: A theoretical model and empirical evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 103-119, January.
    20. 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.
    21. Jan Vermeir & Bruno Heyndels, 2006. "Tax policy and yardstick voting in Flemish municipal elections," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(19), pages 2285-2298.
    22. Happy, J. R., 1992. "The Effect of Economic and Fiscal Performance on Incumbency Voting: The Canadian Case," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 117-130, January.
    23. Richard Cantor & Frank Packer, 1996. "Determinants and impact of sovereign credit ratings," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 2(Oct), pages 37-53.
    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. Alamgir, Farzana & Cotoc, Johnny & Johri, Alok, 2023. "The bribe rate and long run differences in sovereign borrowing costs," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 151(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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Jeon, Kiyoung & Kabukcuoglu, Zeynep, 2018. "Income inequality and sovereign default," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 211-232.
    4. Lizarazo, Sandra Valentina, 2013. "Default risk and risk averse international investors," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 317-330.
    5. Gabriel Cuadra & Juan Sanchez & Horacio Sapriza, 2010. "Fiscal Policy and Default Risk in Emerging Markets," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(2), pages 452-469, April.
    6. Scholl, Almuth, 2017. "The dynamics of sovereign default risk and political turnover," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 37-53.
    7. 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.
    8. Durdu, C. Bora & Nunes, Ricardo & Sapriza, Horacio, 2013. "News and sovereign default risk in small open economies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 1-17.
    9. Enrique G. Mandoza & Vivian Z. Yue, 2008. "A solution to the default risk-business cycle disconnect," International Finance Discussion Papers 924, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Mr. Francisco Roch & Mr. Leonardo Martinez, 2012. "Fiscal Rules and the Sovereign Default Premium," IMF Working Papers 2012/030, International Monetary Fund.
    11. 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.
    12. Cristina Arellano & Gabriel Mihalache & Yan Bai, 2018. "Inflation Targeting with Sovereign Default Risk," 2018 Meeting Papers 851, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Chatterjee, Satyajit & Eyigungor, Burcu, 2019. "Endogenous political turnover and fluctuations in sovereign default risk," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 37-50.
    14. Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & Horacio Sapriza, 2009. "On the cyclicality of the interest rate in emerging economy models: solution methods matter," Working Paper 09-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    15. 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.
    16. Kaas, Leo & Mellert, Jan & Scholl, Almuth, 2020. "Sovereign and private default risks over the business cycle," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    17. Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & Horacio Sapriza, 2009. "Heterogeneous Borrowers In Quantitative Models Of Sovereign Default," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(4), pages 1129-1151, November.
    18. Mitra, Nirvana, 2020. "Political Constraints and Sovereign Default Premia," MPRA Paper 104172, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Antonio Cusato Novelli, 2021. "Sovereign default, political instability and political fragmentation," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 732-755, September.
    20. Hatchondo, Juan Carlos & Martinez, Leonardo, 2009. "Long-duration bonds and sovereign defaults," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 117-125, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sovereign default; Interest rate spread; Political turnover; Left-wing; Right-wing; Cyclicality of fiscal policy.;
    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
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

    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:mcm:deptwp:2018-13. 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://edirc.repec.org/data/demcmca.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.