We develop a political-economic model of sovereign debt that shows that income inequality leads to popular pressures on the government to use foreign debt to Þnance a redistribution of income at the expense of productive public investment. Recognizing this fact international lenders impose credit ceilings with the consequence that developing country borrowers invest less and grow slower. ∗We ar...


 Using two natural field experiments, we tested whether nudging could contribute as a cost-free instrument to increase voluntary public debt collection. We manipulated standard reminder notices sent samples (N = 396 and N 549) with in municipality Denmark, country high tax morale. Results from both studies showed that initial payment rates were significantly higher intervention groups rec...