A more effective euro area monetary policy than OMTs — gold-backed sovereign debt

Given the shortcomings of the current responses to the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone, the author proposes utilising national gold reserves as collateral for government debt. Gold backing would be quite attractive to bond investors and would significantly ease the burden of high sovereign debt yields, particularly in Portugal and Italy. Moreover, it would achieve this without adding further risky assets to the European Central Bank’s balance sheet and thereby transferring credit risk to Northern European countries.     

Banking union with a sovereign virus

Despite the experience of the ongoing sovereign debt crisis, European banks continue to hold large amounts of bonds from their home governments. This ties the fates of the sovereign and the banks together, leading to the disruptive self-reinforcing feedback loops that brought the euro area to the brink of collapse. This article addresses how banks can be weaned off of their massive investments in their home government’s bonds.     

Note: Dealing with Iraq’s foreign indebtedness

Iraq now faces a growing economic crisis, which is impoverishing the country and threatening its basic social fabric. The crisis is partly the result of decades of mismanagement on the part of the Iraqi government. It is also the result of massive overspending and foreign borrowing during the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War. This article investigates Iraq’s debt crisis and attempts to devise a pragmatic debt‐management strategy, which could pos‐sibly lead to solving this acute problem. The four‐pillar strategy introduced here, if well implemented, would not only obliterate the debt, but could more importantly set the scene for Iraq’s return to its place in the international community with a renewed political and economic stability. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Duration of sovereign debt renegotiation

In the period since 1990, sovereign debt renegotiations take an average of five years for bank loans but only one year for bonds. We provide an explanation for this finding by highlighting one key difference between bank loans and bonds: bank loans are rarely traded, while bonds are heavily traded on the secondary market. In our theory, the secondary market plays a crucial information revelation role in shortening renegotiations. Consider a dynamic bargaining game with incomplete information between a government and creditors. The creditors' reservation value is private information, and the government knows only its distribution. Delays in reaching agreements arise in equilibrium because the government uses costly delays to screen the creditors' reservation value. When the creditors trade on the secondary market, the market price conveys information about their reservation value, which lessens the information friction and reduces the renegotiation duration. We find that the secondary market tends to increase the renegotiation payoff of the government but decrease that of the creditors while increasing the total payoff. We then embed these renegotiation outcomes in a simple sovereign debt model to analyze the ex ante welfare implications. The secondary market has the potential to increase the government ex ante welfare when the information friction is severe.     

PUBLIC DEBT AS PRIVATE WEALTH: SOME EQUILIBRIUM CONSIDERATIONS

Government bonds are interest‐bearing assets. Increasing public debt increases wealth, income and consumption demand. The smaller government expenditure is, the larger consumption demand must be in equilibrium, and the larger must be public debt. Conversely, lower public debt implies higher government spending and taxation. Public debt plays, thus, an important role in establishing equilibrium. It distributes output between consumers and government. In case of insufficient demand, a larger public debt entails higher private consumption and less public spending. If upper bounds on public debt are introduced (as in the Maastricht treaty), such constraints place lower bounds on taxation and public spending and may rule out macroeconomic equilibrium. As an aside, a minor flaw in Domar's (American Economic Review, 34 (4), pp. 798–827) classical analysis is corrected.     

Ramifications of debt restructuring on the euro area

The Greek government budget situation plays a central role in the debt crisis in the euro area. Strong consolidation measures need to be implemented, with potential adverse effects on the Greek economy and further credit requirements. Debt conversion might therefore become a reasonable alternative. The following paper provides some simulation-based calculations of the expected fiscal costs for the governments in the large European countries, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, arising from different policy options — among them a second Greek rescue package.     

宏观政策的协调机制与欧洲债务危机

通过政策调整损失函数的理论模型分析,认为负的需求冲击是构成欧洲债务危机的前提,而缺乏货币政策协调的持续性扩张财政政策是欧洲债务危机的本质原因。对2000Q1—2010Q1的"PIIGS"的季度数据进行实证分析后,发现5国独立财政政策和欧元区共同货币政策的协调机制是存在冲突的。希腊长期均衡和短期调整均存在主权债务危机风险,因而成为首个爆发危机的国家。西班牙、意大利的短期调整虽暂时缓解了主权债务危机出现的可能,但不能解决发生危机的根本问题。而爱尔兰、葡萄牙只是短期内实施了过度的积极财政计划而造成了主权债务危机假象。     

关于地方政府融资平台公司融资的分析与思考

本文分析了我国地方政府融资平台融资的现状和发展趋势,并通过与希腊政府负债的对比,指出地方政府融资平台公司负债虽然有一些潜在的风险因素,但并不会演化为"中国版的债务危机";对地方政府融资平台公司的负债不能掉以轻心,而应未雨绸缪,通过深化财税体制改革、转变政府职能以及转变经济发展方式等长效机制,引导地方政府融资健康有序发展。     

标准-普尔政府信用等级评价体系:分析与启示(续)

三、标准-普尔的政府信用等级评价体系的分析方法标准-普尔的政府信用等级评价体系有以下九类 指标. (一)政治风险分析 标准-普尔认为,一个国家(或地区)的政治制度的稳定性、可预测性和透明度,对于分析经济政策决策(包括怎样迅速识别和纠正政策错误)是需要考虑的重要参数。这其中包括国内政治的对抗性程度,政府更迭的频繁程度,以及公共安全事务。对与周边国家的关系,标准-普尔则是从潜在的安全风险的角度     

Europäischer Zinslastenausgleich — eine sinnvolle Alternative zu EZB-Anleihekäufen

The eurozone’s public debt crisis is not over yet - as displayed in the still substantial yield spreads between “northern” and “southern” euro government bonds. Whereas the ECB tried to tackle this problem by announcing (in Sept. 2012) its willingness to conduct unlimited “outright monetary transactions” to the benefit of the southern countries, the German “Institut für Weltwirtschaft (IfW)” offered a less risky option in its “Kiel policy brief” (Jan. 2013): it suggested narrowing this yield spread by establishing a “yield spread compensation fund”, which would balance out interest payments among euro countries. Though this may sound like the first concrete eurozone bailout mechanism, the idea really is a risk-free debt alleviation tool, matching windfall gains with windfall profits without too much of a bailout.     

MODELING SOVEREIGN RISKS: FROM A HYBRID MODEL TO THE GENERALIZED DENSITY APPROACH

Motivated by the European sovereign debt crisis, we propose a hybrid sovereign default model that combines an accessible part taking into account the evolution of the sovereign solvency and the impact of critical political events, and a totally inaccessible part for the idiosyncratic credit risk. We obtain closed‐form formulas for the probability that the default occurs at critical political dates in a Markovian setting. Moreover, we introduce a generalized density framework for the hybrid default time and deduce the compensator process of default. Finally, we apply the hybrid model and the generalized density to the valuation of sovereign bonds and explain the significant jumps in long‐term government bond yields during the sovereign crisis.     

欧债危机对中国地方政府债务的警示

近年来,我国地方政府债务的总体规模出现了较大幅度的上升,尽管这个规模尚处于可控范围之内,但决不能忽视地方政府债务不断累积,欧元区国家主权债务危机的警示在于:由于债务是延迟的税收,政府必须不断地在短期与长期内努力平衡其收益与支出。因此,必须积极寻找相应对策,化解地方政府债务的潜在风险。     

我国地方政府债务风险与防范对策研究

当前,我国地方债务的规模已十分庞大,并呈现不断扩张的趋势,不但偿债压力大、债务结构不合理,而且债务隐性化趋势明显、管理混乱,存在较大的风险隐患。我国地方债务的累积及其风险的扩张将阻碍经济发展方式的转变,降低经济发展质量,使经济保持较高的通胀率,引发高房价问题,不利于收入分配的改革,并恶化政府和金融体系的信用。     

Gunboats, reputation, and sovereign repayment: lessons from the Southern Confederacy

Many states that formed the Southern Confederacy defaulted on sovereign debt sold in international capital markets during the 1840s. The Confederacy also elected President Jefferson Davis, who openly advocated the repudiation of U.S. states' debts while a member of Congress. Despite its poor credit record, the Confederate government managed to float cotton bonds in England that constituted under 2% of its expenditures. The bonds were largely issued to settle overdue debts with gun contractors who had cut off trade credit. The South serviced the bonds as late as March 1865, a time of domestic hyperinflation and weeks before the fall of Richmond. Although the Confederate experience shows that trade sanctions can promote debt repayment, the gunboat model can only account for a small amount of lending. A reputation or another type of sanction would be necessary to support higher levels of lending in international capital markets.     

浅谈“美国国债困境”对我国的影响

美国国债危机引发世界恐慌,中国作为美国国债最大的持有者,如何能够在风云变幻的国际资本运作中独善其身,是目前最为国民关注的问题。中美经济相互依赖是多年形成的格局,美国国债危机也严重干扰了中国的金融秩序。中国应从美国国债危机中吸取教训,完善外汇储备管理机制,鼓励利用外汇储备,加强对投机资本的监管,减少对他国经济的依赖性,尽最大可能减少美国国债危机带来的冲击。     

对短期负债与国际金融危机关系的重新审视--基于双重代理的分析

按照金融危机理论，短期负债是造成国际金融危机的重要原因，为了防止金融危机的爆发，应该通过对短期资本流入征税等措施来限制甚至禁止短期外债。但基于双重代理的分析，短期负债会使政府采取对投资者更为有利的政策，这在确保贷款方回收贷款的同时，也提高了借款企业以及借款国的福利水平。因此，危机的原因应归结为借款方对借款能力的耗竭，而不是短期负债。     

欧洲主权债务危机对中国的影响及启示

对中国的欧洲主权债务危机从形成到逐步影响中国的各个方面进行详尽分析和探讨,包括对汇率、对外贸易、金融政策等的影响,指出应以欧洲主权债务危机为戒,改进中国地方政府债务的监管体制.     

Not kennt kein Gebot? Sondervermögen als Speicher von Notlagenkrediten

The German federal government is facing criticism for using the exemption from the national debt brake due to the coronavirus crisis to expand the fiscal leeway for its future energy and climate policies. The budget dispute is taking place against the backdrop of a massive expansion of government debt in Europe. In the following, the author explain the critique of the latest supplementary budget and argues that the federal government has missed the opportunity to prove that the fiscal policy options within the existing rules are sufficient.

     

基于政府预算方程的希腊债务危机成因实证分析

2009年希腊陷入债务危机,欧盟诸国相继中招,引发了世界经济的动荡。这场欧洲主权债务危机从本质上来说,是欧洲一体化框架的缺陷在经历金融危机冲击后的一次总爆发。本文使用政府预算方程对希腊经济数据进行研究,试图对其债务问题发展及成因进行简要分析与判断,进而得出结论:希腊必须恢复自身造血功能,提振经济、平衡预算,才能使其经济发展重归正常轨道,从而对我国未来经济发展起到借鉴和警示作用。     

The role of the state in foreign borrowing by developing countries

The debt crisis that has been rumbling for many years repeatedly necessitates fresh rescheduling negotiations. These debt rescheduling conferences bring together two fundamentally different partles: on the one side are the emissaries from the big international banks and on the other the government representatives from the debtor country in question.