Research
Working Papers
Coping with Disasters: Two Centuries of International Official Lending, June 2020, with Sebastian Horn and Carmen Reinhart, NBER Working Paper 27343
Coverage: Financial Times Alphaville, Süddeutsche Zeitung, see also VOXeu column
Ukraine Support Tracker: Which countries help Ukraine and how? with Arianna Antezza, André Frank, Pascal Frank, Lukas Franz and Ekaterina Reinskaya.
Paper and regularly updated database here
Coverage: The Economist, Bloomberg, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit, FAZ, ARD Brennpunkt and Tagesschau
Hidden Defaults, with Sebastian Horn and Carmen Reinhart, forthcoming, AER Papers & Proceedings
New dataset on almost 1000 sovereign debt restructurings since 1970 (Chinese, banks, bonds, Paris Club)
Coverage: The Economist, Handelsblatt, Welt
Populist Leaders and the Economy, October 2020, with Manuel Funke and Moritz Schularick, CEPR Discussion Paper 15405, R&R at the American Economic Review
Coverage: Spiegel, Les Echos, see also VOXeu column
Exportweltmeister: The Low Returns on Germany's Capital Exports, with Franziska Hünnekes and Moritz Schularick, R&R at the Journal of International Economics
Coverage: Die Zeit, FAZ, NZZ, Süddeutsche Zeitung
How China Lends: A Rare Look into 100 Debt Contracts with Foreign Governments, March 2021, with Anna Gelpern, Sebastian Horn, Scott Morris and Bradley Parks
Coverage: Economist, Financial Times, Washington Post, Reuters, Spiegel, FAZ, SZ, Die Zeit
Data on Chinese lending contracts can be accessed through a public repository here
Corona Politics: The Cost of Mismanaging Pandemics, September 2020, with Helios Herrera, Guillermo Ordonez and Max Konradt
The Seniority Structure of Sovereign Debt, 2019, with Matthias Schlegl and Mark L. J. Wright, NBER WP
Capital Flow Cycles: A Long Global View, with Carmen Reinhart and Vincent R. Reinhart, Paper presented at the Eighteenth Jacques Polak Annual IMF Research Conference, November 2-3, 2017. Press Coverage: The Economist
Published Articles
Sovereign Debt in the 21st Century, with Kris Mitchener, accepted by the Journal of Economic Literature
Sovereign Bonds since Waterloo, with Josefin Meyer and Carmen Reinhart, accepted by the Quarterly Journal of Economics
Featured in NBER Digest, April 2019
Coverage: Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Financial Times, FT Alphaville, FAZ
Political Booms, Financial Crises, with Helios Herrera and Guillermo Ordonez, Journal of Political Economy, 2020
China's Overseas Lending, with Sebastian Horn and Carmen Reinhart, forthcoming in the Journal of International Economics
NEW: China debt stock dataset (March 2021 update), estimates by country and year, 2000-2017 (direct loans only)
NEW: Loan-level dataset and full replication material can be downloaded at Mendeley
Older July 2019 version here. In 2020, we wrote a response to our critics showing that our estimates are a lower bound. Recent estimates by Aiddata find much higher "hidden debt" numbers than we do.
Coverage: The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, CNBC, NZZ, FAZ, Der Spiegel
Sovereign Defaults in Court, with Julian Schumacher and Henrik Enderlein, forthcoming in the Journal of International Economics
Quoted in NML vs. Republic of Argentina (Second Circuit/ Supreme Court): US Government Opinion and French Government Opinion
Press Coverage: New York Times, Financial Times [2X], FT Alphaville [here, here, here and here], Bloomberg, FAZ, FAZ Sonntagszeitung, DER SPIEGEL, NZZ, ARD. Summary as a VOX column
Litigation data here
Restructuring Sovereign Bonds: Holdouts, Haircuts and the Effectiveness of CACs, with Chuck Fang and Julian Schumacher, forthcoming in the IMF Economic Review (Jacques Polak Annual Research Conference Volume), also available as ECB Working Paper
Foreign Law Bonds: Can They Reduce Sovereign Borrowing Costs?, with Marcos Chamon and Julian Schumacher, Journal of International Economics, 2018
ECB Interventions in Distressed Sovereign Debt Markets: The Case of Greek Bonds, with Jeromin Zettelmeyer, IMF Economic Review, 2018
Coverage: Wall Street Journal, Les Echos
Going to Extremes: Politics after Financial Crises, 1870-2014, with Manuel Funke and Moritz Schularick, European Economic Review, 2016
Coverage: Paul Krugman, New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Spiegel Online, Die ZEIT, Le Figaro, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Huffington Post, Reuters
Albert Hirschman Award by the Washington Post, mentioned for "best work on political economy in 2016"
The Effect of Labor Migration on the Diffusion of Democracy: Evidence from a Former Soviet Republic, with Toman Omar Mahmoud, Hillel Rapoport and Andreas Steinmayr, American Economic Journal - Applied Economics, 2017.
The Output Costs of Hard and Soft Sovereign Default, with Michael Zabel, European Economic Review, 2017.
The Pitfalls of External Dependence: Greece 1829-2015, with Carmen Reinhart, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2016.
Coverage: Financial Times [here and here], Les Echos, Wall Street Journal (Pro), Süddeutsche Zeitung, FAZ
Global Cycles: Capital Flows, Commodities, and Sovereign Defaults, 1815-2015, with Carmen Reinhart and Vincent Reinhart, American Economic Review, Papers & Proceedings, 2016.
The International Monetary Fund: 70 Years of Reinvention, 2016, with Carmen Reinhart, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2016. A longer version is available as NBER Working Paper 21805
Coverage: Financial Times
Sovereign Debt Relief and its Aftermath, with Carmen Reinhart, Journal of the European Economic Association (JEEA), 2016. An earlier version is available as NBER Working Paper 20577
Press Coverage: New York Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg, Slate, Telegraph, The Guardian, Irish Times, BILD, Die Welt, Kathimerini
See also the Summary on VOX
Sovereign Debt Restructurings: Preemptive or Post-Default, 2016, with Tamon Asonuma, Journal of the European Economic Association (JEEA), 2016. Also available as CEPR and CESifo Working Papers
NEW: Sept. 2020 update of monthly sovereign default dataset (Asonuma/Trebesch): see here
What Explains Sovereign Debt Litigation?, with Julian Schumacher and Henrik Enderlein, Journal of Law and Economics, 2015. Also available as CESifo WP No. 5319.
Sovereign Defaults: The Price of Haircuts, with Juan Cruces (Paper, Appendix), American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2013.
Press Coverage: Wall Street Journal, Handelsblatt, Die Zeit, Die Welt, Financial Times, La Repubblica, Le Temps, Die Presse, Kathimerini, El Mundo, Nikkei,
Les Echos, Bloomberg Business Week, The Guardian, Le Monde, VOX column
The Greek Debt Restructuring: An Autopsy, CESifo WP 4333, July 2013, with Jeromin Zettelmeyer and Mitu Gulati, Economic Policy, 2013.
Press Coverage: Bloomberg, Financial Times, Financial Times Alphaville, Forbes Magazine, Il Sole 24 Ore
Sovereign Debt Disputes: A Database of Government Coerciveness in Debt Crises, with Henrik Enderlein and Laura von Daniels, Journal of International Money and Finance, 2012.
The Economics of Human Trafficking and Labour Migration: Micro-evidence from Eastern Europe, with Toman Omar Mahmoud. Journal of Comparative Economics, 2010.
Additional Articles, Unpublished and Old Work
Resolving Sovereign Debt Crises: the Role of Political Risk, Oxford Economic Papers, 2018
In a special issue on sovereign debt restructuring by Ghosal and Miller
Sovereign Debt Restructurings 1950-2010: Literature Survey, Data and Stylized Facts, August 2012, with Udaibir Das and Michael Papaioannou,
IMF Working Paper 12/203 [Paper] and [Data]
Press Coverage: Financial Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung, FT Alphaville, Dow Jones Newswire
Seasonal Migration and Networks. Evidence on Moldova's Labour Exodus, with Dennis Goerlich.
Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), 2008.
The Use of Socio-Economic Criteria for Intergovernmental Transfers: The Case of India, with Tapas K. Sen.
Economic and Political Weekly, 2004.
Book Chapters
Sovereign Default, with Julianne Ams, Reza Baqir and Gelpern
In: Abbas, Pienkowski and Rogoff (Eds.): Sovereign Debt: A Guide for Economists and Practitioners, Oxford University Press, 2020.
Restructuring Sovereign Debt: Lessons from Recent History, with Udaibir Das and Michael Papaioannou.
In: Claessens, Kose, Leaven und Valencia (Eds.): Financial Crises, Consequences and Policy Responses, IMF press, 2014
Managing Holdouts: The Case of the 2012 Greek Exchange, with Mitu Gulati and Jeromin Zettelmeyer.
In: Lastra und Buchheit (Eds.): Sovereign Debt Management, Oxford Univ. Press, 2012
Sovereign Default Risk and Private Sector Access to Capital in Emerging Markets. [Download as IMF WP], with Udaibir Das and Michael Papaioannou.
In: Primo Braga, Carlos A. /Dömeland, Dörte (Eds): Debt Relief and Beyond: Lessons Learned and Challenges Ahead. World Bank Publishers, 2009
Press Coverage: The Economist, IMF Research Bulletin
Debt Restructuring Delays: Measurement and Stylized Facts.
In: Kolb, Robert (Ed.): Sovereign Debt: From Safety to Default. John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
Sovereign Risk Spillovers, with Udaibir Das and Michael Papaioannou.
In: Kolb, Robert (Ed.): Sovereign Debt: From Safety to Default. John Wiley & Sons, 2011.