Suchergebnisse

This article presents a model in which haircuts on public debt may occur. My focus relies on the explanation and numerical exploration of multiple equilibria. Calvo (1988) first found multiple equilibrium interest rates due to investors' self-fulfilling expectations of a partial default in a model with exogenous debt. I use Calvo's (1988) setting to study the impact of endogenizing debt on multiplicity. This is a relevant exercise as in this setting the government has the ability to choose the optimal level of debt. More than that, if it behaves as a large agent it can influence the interest rate it will face. In particular, I find that if the interest rate schedule is presented as in Arellano (2008), depending on debt at maturity, uniqueness can be achieved by a government behaving as a large agent. However, investors can also coordinate on offering a schedule depending on the initial level of debt, as implicitly defined in Calvo (1988). In this case there is more than one equilibrium, provided that public expenditure in the first period is not extremely high.

This article sheds light on the question whether arising sovereign credit risk in the EMU has been triggered by the US subprime crunch. By adapting recent econometric methodologies suggested in the related field of speculative bubbles, we find clear evidence for fast diverging (and even explosive) behavior of EMU government bond yields of peripheral countries relative to Germany during the financial and the European debt crisis. This might be caused by flight-to-quality effects to German government bonds coincident with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and by a loss of confidence in the fiscal stability of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain during the European debt crisis. First, we find compelling evidence for bubbles in the Dow Jones Equity Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) index which serves as a weekly measure of economic activity in the North American real estate sector. Second, in our main analysis, we test whether the collapsing bubble in the housing market triggered the diverging government bond yields during two crisis regimes. Our findings indicate that this was the case in the course of the financial crisis, but not during the EMU sovereign debt crisis. These results suggest that the severe fiscal problems in peripheral countries are homemade rather than imported from the US. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

How high would be the opportunity costs of the introduction of a German-style debt brake in other EU member states? The following article calculates these and concludes that they would in many cases be politically unacceptable. The author proposes an alternative solution, a 'debt brake light'.

Who are the dominant owners of US public debt? Is it widely held, or concentrated in the hands of a few? Does ownership of public debt give these bondholders power over our government? What do we make of the fact that foreign-owned debt has ballooned to nearly 50 percent today? Until now, we have not had any satisfactory answers to these questions. Public Debt, Inequality, and Power is the first comprehensive historical analysis of public debt ownership in the United States. It reveals that ownership of federal bonds has been increasingly concentrated in the hands of the 1 percent over the past three decades. Based on extensive and original research, Public Debt, Inequality, and Power will shock and enlighten.

Debt creation imposes an obligation to repay borrowed funds from a wealth base that for most local governments is capitalized in property values. Therefore, the ability to afford debt is tied to the local economy, a factor often overlooked by localities in the analyses of their own position. However, debt levels are also relative, as the many debt affordability studies among governments and by bond rating agencies suggest. We argue here that economic concentration and interjurisdictional coordination fundamentally provide a broader analytical approach to the question a locality asks: can we afford more debt?

Who are the dominant owners of US public debt? Is it widely held, or concentrated in the hands of a few? Does ownership of public debt give these bondholders power over our government? What do we make of the fact that foreign-owned debt has ballooned to nearly 50 percent today? Until now, we have not had any satisfactory answers to these questions. Public Debt, Inequality, and Power is the first comprehensive historical analysis of public debt ownership in the United States. It reveals that ownership of federal bonds has been increasingly concentrated in the hands of the 1 percent over the past three decades. Based on extensive and original research, Public Debt, Inequality, and Power will shock and enlighten. "These days, the topic of America's debt stirs heated political debate. But one of the most important facts in this discussion has hitherto been obscured: who actually owns that debt inside America? Hager has done some fascinating and pathbreaking research to answer that question and concluded that the ownership pattern is surprisingly concentrated—and unequal—and that this may have implications for how the entire debt debate develops in the coming years. This is an illuminating work that deserves wide attention." (GILLIAN TETT, Financial Times) "The relationship between the ownership structure of government debt and economic inequality—between public finance and the class structure of modern capitalism—is one of several central concerns of political economy that has been almost completely neglected in recent decades. Sandy Brian Hager's book returns to the subject with theoretical and empirical bravado." (WOLFGANG STREECK, Director Emeritus, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies) "Money is power, and US Treasury debt is the world's single largest financial instrument. Hager's insightful book fills an enormous hole in our knowledge of who owns this debt and how the power flowing from that increasingly concentrated ownership affects US and global politics." (HERMAN M. SCHWARTZ, author of Subprime Nation: American Power, Global Capital, and the Housing Bubble) *** SANDY BRIAN HAGER is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. He has published in various journals, including New Political Economy and Socio-Economic Review. [This book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution + Noncommercial + NoDerivatives 3.0 license. Copyright is retained by the author(s)]