Interest Rate Uncertainty and Sovereign Default Risk

As the United States emerged from the Great Recession, there was considerable uncer- tainty around the future direction of US monetary policy exemplified by the chatter and speculation around tapering of quantitative easing by the US Fed in the financial press. The increased uncertainty around the timing and speed of the tapering coincided with a sharp spike in the sovereign bond yields of several emerging economies. We explore the impact of an increase in interest rate uncertainty on the borrowing costs of a small open economy in an otherwise standard model of sovereign default, where spread is endogenous. We find that introducing time-varying volatility in the world interest rate (i.e. uncertainty shocks) the model predicts a mean sovereign spread that is 115% larger and 126% more volatile. The model also predicts that countries default more than twice as frequently. Moreover, the equilibrium debt-to-income ratio is 19% lower. The welfare gains from eliminating uncertainty about the world interest rate amount up to a 1.8% permanent increase in consumption. Overall, we find quantitative support for the widespread con- cerns regarding the uncertainty about when and how the Fed will unwind its quantitative easing.