The stock of sovereign debt is typically measured at face value. Defined as the undiscounted sum of future principal repayments, face values are misleading when debts are issued with different contractual forms or maturities. In this paper, we construct alternative measures of the stock of external sovereign debt for 100 developing countries from 1979 through 2006 that correct for differences i...

The integration of emerging economies in world financial markets allowed these countries to import foreign capital. In some cases, however, the capital inflows have been interrupted by sudden reversals and severe financial crises. Although excessive borrowing is a necessary condition for a financial crisis, the dynamics leading to excessive borrowing and subsequent reversal can also be connecte...

There have been many reports of the same or similar congenital malformations of the heart in two sibs or in a child and parent. Abbott (1927) found 11 such pairs and Brown (1939) who had seen six pairs thought they were most common in members of the same generation. Medvei and Rosler (1932) collected 37 families with such pairs and Gansslen et al. (1940) 68 families: the diagnoses made at that ...

Recent sovereign default episodes have been associated with substantial output costs. In this paper, we construct a parsimonious …nite horizon model which captures two key market imperfections: (i) the government’s inability to commit to repay debt; (ii) liquidity constraints in the domestic …nancial sector. We use the model to answer two sets of questions. First, we characterize the optimal so...

Based on a joint three – factor a¢ ne model, we estimate the term structure of interest rates and default spreads for Uruguay using the reduced form approach developed by Du¢ e and Singleton. We …nd that Uruguayan average term structure was negatively sloped between 1997 and 2003, as indicated by previous empirical evidence for low –quality debtors. Surprisingly, Uruguayan average yield curve w...

This paper provides a model of sovereign default risk pricing, in which a sovereign country endogenously determines the timing of default on its external debt. The theoretical relationships between credit risk and the macro-variables considered in the model are consistent with the empirical literature. The model also helps to explain the variation across time in Emerging Market Bond Index (EMBI...

Dr. Akihiro Ito, who had been popular in Japan by the name of Professor “Hormone”, died from sepsis on August 24 after a long illness. Dr. Ito was born on Janunary 3, 1938, in Hiroshima prefecture. He graduated from the School of Medicine at Hiroshima University in March of 1962, and received his doctorate from the graduate school of the University in March of 1967. He became a research assista...

Much of our understanding of creditor rights is based on the notion that better enforcement of contracts reduces borrowing costs, thereby relaxing financial constraints. But what if these rights are too strong? We empirically investigate this question by examining the effect of a securitization reform that strengthened secured creditors rights on corporate debt structure. Strikingly, we find th...

FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY FOLLOWING the discovery of sphingolipids, biochemists viewed these ubiquitous phospholipids as pharmacologically silent structural elements of the cell membrane. After the identification of G protein-coupled receptors for sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) (1, 8, 10), researchers began to recognize the importance of sphingolipid-mediated cell signaling, and this recognition l...

Space conditioning for thermal comfort within buildings is one of the largest sources greenhouse gas emissions globally, creating an urgent need to realize deep energy reductions in this service meet climate goals. Our current approach providing relies on large spaces. In perspective, we show that inherently inefficient by introducing and calculating TMTL needed keep building occupants thermall...