Using a panel of 30 emerging market economies from 1997 to 2007, this paper investigates the determinants of country risk premiums as measured by sovereign bond spreads. Unlike previous studies, the results indicate that both fiscal and political factors matter for credit risk in emerging markets. Lower levels of political risk are associated with tighter spreads, while efforts at fiscal consolidation narrow credit spreads, especially in countries that experienced prior defaults. The composition of fiscal policy matters: spending on public investment contributes to lower spreads as long as the fiscal position remains sustainable and the fiscal deficit does not worsen.

We analyze the relationship between global and country-specific factors and emerging market debt spreads from three different angles. First, we aim to disentangle the effect of global and country-specific developments, and find that while both country-specific and global developments are important in the long-run, global factors are main determinants of spreads in the short-run. Second, we investigate whether and how the strength of fundamentals is related to the sensitivity of spreads to global factors. Countries with stronger fundamentals tend to have lower sensitivity to changes in global risk aversion. Third, we decompose changes in spreads and analyze the behavior of explained and unexplained components over different periods. To do so, we break down fitted changes in spreads into the contribution of country-specific and global factors, as well as decompose changes in the residual into the correction of initial misalignment and an increase/decrease in misalignment. We find that changes in spreads follow periods of tightening/widening, which are well-explained by the model; and the dynamics of the components of the unexplained residual follow all the major developments that impact market sentiment. In particular, we find that in the periods of severe marketstress, such as during the intensive phase of the Eurozone debt crisis, global factors tend to drive changes in the spreads and the misalignment tends to increase in magnitude and its relative share in actual spreads.

This paper analyses the determimants of emerging market sovereign bond spreads by examining the short and long-run effects of fundamental (macroeconomic) and temporary (financial market) factors on these spreads. During the current global financial and economic crisis, sovereign bond spreads widened dramatically for both developed and emerging market economies. This deterioration has widely been attributed to rapidly growing public debts and balance sheet risks. Our results indicate that in the long run, fundamentals are significant determinants of emerging market sovereign bond spreads, while in the short run, financial volatility is a more important determinant of sperads than fundamentals indicators.

Using a panel of 30 emerging market economies from 1997 to 2007, this paper investigates the determinants of country risk premiums as measured by sovereign bond spreads. Unlike previous studies, the results indicate that both fiscal and political factors matter for credit risk in emerging markets. Lower levels of political risk are associated with tighter spreads, while efforts at fiscal consolidation narrow credit spreads, especially in countries that experienced prior defaults. The composition of fiscal policy matters: spending on public investment contributes to lower spreads as long as the fiscal position remains sustainable and the fiscal deficit does not worsen.

Sovereign investment grade status is often associated with lower spreads in international markets. Using a panel framework for 35 emerging markets between 1997 and 2010, thispaper finds that investment grade status reduces spreads by 36 percent, above and beyond what is implied by macroeconomic fundamentals. This compares to a 5-10 percent reduction in spreads following upgrades within the investment grade asset class, and no impact formovements within the speculative grade asset class, ceteris paribus. While global financial conditions play a central role in determining spreads, market sentiment improves with lower external public debt to GDP levels and higher domestic growth rates.

This paper explores how much of the movements in the sovereign spreads of Asian economies over the course of the global financial crisis has reflected shifts in (i) global risk aversion; (ii) country-specific risks, directly from worsening fundamentals, and indirectly from spillovers originating in other sovereigns and the uncertainty surrounding exchange rates. Earlier in the crisis, the increase in market-implied contagion led to higher Asian sovereign bond yield spreads over swaps. But, after the crisis, Asia’s sovereign spreads normalized, despite the debt crisis in the euro area, reflecting a fall in both exchange rate and spillover risks.

This paper investigates the effects of fiscal consolidation announcements on sovereign spreads in a panel of 21 emerging market economies during 2000-18. We construct a novel dataset using a global news database to identify the precise announcement date of fiscal consolidation actions. Our results show that sovereign spreads decline significantly following news that austerity measures have been approved by the legislature (congress or parliament), in periods of high sovereign spreads or in countries under an IMF program. In addition, consolidation announcements are less contractionary when sovereign spreads decline, with the reduction in output being half of the counterfactual case in which spreads do not respond to announcements. These results constitute direct evidence that confidence effects, in the form of lower sovereign spreads, are an important transmission channel of fiscal shocks. We also find that the role of confidence effects increases with the level of spreads such that countries with high spread levels stand to benefit the most from putting in place credible austerity packages.

This paper analyzes the impact of strained government finances on macroeconomic stability and the transmission of fiscal policy. Using a variant of the model by Curdia and Woodford (2009), we study a "sovereign risk channel" through which sovereign default risk raises funding costs in the private sector. If monetary policy is constrained, the sovereign risk channel exacerbates indeterminacy problems: private-sector beliefs of a weakening economy may become self-fulfilling. In addition, sovereign risk amplifies the effects of negative cyclical shocks. Under those conditions, fiscal retrenchment can help curtail the risk of macroeconomic instability and, in extreme cases, even stimulate economic activity.

We use novel spatial econometrics techniques to explore spillovers in the sovereign bond market for 24 emerging economies during 1995-2010. The paper extends the previous literature focusing on spillover effects from advanced to emerging economies by analyzing transmission of shocks across emerging markets. After controlling for the impact of global factors, we find strong evidence of spillovers from both sovereign spreads and macroeconomic fundamentals in neighboring emerging economies. In addition to the geographical proximity, the channels of spatial transmission include trade and financial linkages. The results of the paper highlight the importance of accounting not only for spillovers from advanced economies to emerging markets, but also across emerging markets when analyzing sovereign spreads.

The book presents and discusses policy-relevant research on the current debt challenges which developing, emerging market and developed countries face. Its value added lies in the integrated approach of drawing on theoretical research and evidence from practitioners' experience in developing and emerging market countries.