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Abstract. Accumulating debt is usually harmful for states, but a cyclical deficit policy and large-scale borrowing have been beneficial for the United States. While structural changes in the international political economy may cap America's future ability to process debt, an empirical analysis of the economic dimensions of hegemony over the last quarter century shows unambiguously that the hegemon reaps disproportionate gains in the area of trade and investment. This finding provides new insight on whether it is advantageous to be a hegemon.Résumé. Les États pâtissent généralement de l'accumulation des dettes, mais une politique de déficit cyclique et le recours à de larges emprunts ont pourtant été bénéfiques aux États-Unis. La capacité future de la puissance américaine à gérer sa dette sera peut-être entamée par les changements structurels subis par l'économie politique mondiale. Toutefois, l'analyse empirique des dimensions économiques de la situation d'hégémonie durant les vingt-cinq dernières années met à jour, et sans ambiguïté aucune, les gains disproportionnés générés par l'hégémon dans les domaines du commerce et de l'investissement. Cette recherche apporte un éclairage nouveau au débat sur les avantages liés à la position d'hégémon.

This dissertation explores the relationship between sovereign debt ownership, default probabilities, and debt returns, focusing on the increasing domestic debt ownership in devloped countries since the global financial crisis in 2007. It also explains, both theoretically and empircally, how changes in sovereign debt maturity structure would affect the real economy. This dissertation helps advance the study of the linkages between sovereign debt composition, asset prices and the real economy.In the first chapter, I study the relationship bewteen sovereign debt default and debt ownership structure. Major developed countries have experienced a significant run-up in public debt after the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008. However, the impact on sovereign debt ownership varies across countries. Specifically, the share of debt held by domestic banks has increased in GIIPS countries but declined in non-GIIPS countries. I explain the cross-country differences in debt ownership structure using a dynamic equilibrium model with strategic and non-discriminatory defaults, in which sovereign debt can serve as collateral for expanding private investments. The key insight is that the share of debt held domestically is positively correlated with the government's incentive to default. Consequently, the model predicts that the share of domestically-held debt is strictly increasing in total debt only in highly-indebted countries whose debt has low collateral value. My result is consistent with the notion that domestic debt is a committment device for debt repayment. The key policy implication is that changes in debt ownership are important indicators for the optimality of public debt level. Using data from a panel of 11 countries between 2007 and 2014, I find evidence consistent with these predictions.In the second chapter, I study the interaction between monetary and fiscal policies, and how changes in fiscal policies, such as the level of debt and debt maturity composition, would affect inflation, the real economy and asset prices. I developed a three-period equilibrium model, in which monetary policies are modelled as open market operations. In my model, inflation and the term structure of interest rates are jointly determined by monetary and fiscal policies, and therefore Sargent (1981)'s "game of chicken'' problem is avoided. I show from the model that fiscal instruments, such as the primary surplus, and the level and maturity structure of government debt, have important implications on inflations and the term structure of interest rates. I then provide robust empirical evidence on how changes in debt-maturity structure are associated with changes in future inflation using U.S. data. One percent increase in the fraction of short-term debt issued is associated with more than 0.2 percent increase in future inflation of different horizons. Empirical evidecne also shows that changes in the short-end of the maturity structure has the most explanatory power over short- and medium- horizons, whereas changes in the long-end of the maturity structure has the most explanatory power over long- horizons.

A topic of some current interest to forecasters and policymakers is the extent to which the high levels of corporate indebtedness observed throughout the late-1980s contributed to the recession and whether the still substantial debts of the corporate sector are likely to make the recovery from recession slower than normal. The purpose of this note is to present and provide an interpretation of the evidence bearing on this issue.

Achieving debt-free public higher education is an important goal for society as a whole and the left in particular. Education is a human right, and anyone who is willing and able should be able to attend an institution of higher education irrespective of their ability to pay for it. Public disinvestment in education needs to be challenged, because changing the very nature of higher education and exacerbating inequality even further is more than a budgetary matter.

Trade sanctions are often criticized as ineffective because they create incentives for evasion or as harmful to the target country's population. Loan sanctions, in contrast, could be self-enforcing and could protect the population from being saddled with "odious debt" run up by looting or repressive dictators. Governments could impose loan sanctions by instituting legal changes that prevent seizure of countries' assets for nonrepayment of debt incurred after sanctions were imposed. This would reduce creditors' incentives to lend to sanctioned regimes. Restricting sanctions to cover only loans made after the sanction was imposed would help avoid time-consistency problems.

International Debt Statistics (IDS) 2013 is a continuation of the World Bank's publications Global Development Finance, Volume II (1997 through 2009) and the earlier World Debt Tables (1973 through 1996). IDS 2013 provides statistical tables showing the external debt of 128 developing countries that report public and publicly guaranteed external debt to the World Bank's Debtor Reporting System (DRS). It also includes tables of key debt ratios for individual reporting countries and the composition of external debt stocks and flows for individual reporting countries and regional and income group

Unpayable Debt examines the relationship between coloniality, raciality, and global capital through a black feminist poethical framework. Inspired by Octavia E. Butler's 1979 sci-fi novel Kindred, in which an African American writer is transported back in time to the antebellum South to save her owner-ancestor, Unpayable Debt relates the notion of value to coloniality-both economic and ethical. Focusing on the philosophy behind value, Denise Ferreira da Silva exposes capital as the juridical architecture and ethical grammar of the world. Here, raciality--a symbol of coloniality--justifies deployments of total violence to enable expropriation and land extraction. This is the first volume in the On the Political series