From debt crisis to sovereign risk
In: https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/301992
Recent experience taught us that advanced economies can be subject to debt crises, with tremendous impact on the economy. Such crises are -fortunately- rare events with which policy makers do not have to deal on a daily basis. They do have to incorporate sovereign risk, the probability that such a crisis occurs, in their decisions tough. The main motivation and focus of this thesis is the challenge the presence of sovereign risk brings for policy makers. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 deal with assessing the probability of a debt crisis. Chapter 2 uses long term time series of public finances for 9 OECD countries and shows that a simulation that takes economic uncertainty and the expected response of the government to that into account can inform on future debt sustainability. Chapter 3 uses financial market data on default risk for sovereigns and banks in Europe and investigates the directional spill-overs between them. It finds that prior to the crisis bank and government bonds were substitutes, whereas they are complements now. Three channels contribute to this effect: direct holdership of government bonds by banks, implicit bail-out guarantees and effects via the state of the economy. Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 then take sovereign risk as given and ask what the presence of sovereign risk implies. In Chapter 4 the goal is to see whether a stable and unique macroeconomic solution exists under sovereign risk as a function of monetary and fiscal policy stance. In a stable and unique solution the debt level is non-explosive and the price level is determinate. The central bank and the government need to coordinate their policies in the presence of sovereign risk. A deficit target for the government makes this easier to achieve. Chapter 5 focusses on the interaction of sovereign risk and the exchange rate regime. It shows that under a flexible exchange rate regime the exchange rate depreciates as the fiscal position deteriorates. The exchange rate depreciation supports exports, which is a stabilizing effect that counteracts ...