(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
Interest Rate Uncertainty and Sovereign Default Risk
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/27639.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Interest Rate Uncertainty and Sovereign Default Risk

Author

Listed:
  • Alok Johri
  • Shahed Khan
  • César Sosa-Padilla

Abstract

Empirical studies suggest that fluctuations in the level and volatility of the world interest rate affect sovereign spreads in emerging economies. We incorporate an estimated time-varying process for the world interest rate (with both level and volatility shocks) into a model of sovereign default calibrated to a panel of emerging economies. Time variation in the world interest rate interacts with default incentives in the model and leads to state contingent effects similar to the empirical literature. On average, in response to a rise in the world interest rate the model delivers a 1.4 times increase in the spread. The volatility state has a major impact on this average – the increase in spreads is much larger in high volatility states. Moreover, we show that fluctuations in the world interest rate can generate considerable co-movement in sovereign yields across nations, as seen in the data.

Suggested Citation

  • Alok Johri & Shahed Khan & César Sosa-Padilla, 2020. "Interest Rate Uncertainty and Sovereign Default Risk," NBER Working Papers 27639, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27639
    Note: EFG IFM ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w27639.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Bloom, 2016. "Fluctuations in uncertainty," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 4.
    2. Gelos, R. Gaston & Sahay, Ratna & Sandleris, Guido, 2011. "Sovereign borrowing by developing countries: What determines market access?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 243-254, March.
    3. Javier Garcia-Cicco & Roberto Pancrazi & Martin Uribe, 2010. "Real Business Cycles in Emerging Countries?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2510-2531, December.
    4. Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Pablo Guerron-Quintana & Juan F. Rubio-Ramirez & Martin Uribe, 2011. "Risk Matters: The Real Effects of Volatility Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2530-2561, October.
    5. Javier Bianchi & Chenxin Liu & Enrique G. Mendoza, 2016. "Fundamentals News, Global Liquidity, and Macroprudential Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2015, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Ricardo M. Reyes-Heroles & Gabriel Tenorio, 2017. "Interest Rate Volatility and Sudden Stops : An Empirical Investigation," International Finance Discussion Papers 1209, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    7. Uribe, Martin & Yue, Vivian Z., 2006. "Country spreads and emerging countries: Who drives whom?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 6-36, June.
    8. Tauchen, George, 1986. "Finite state markov-chain approximations to univariate and vector autoregressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-181.
    9. Neumeyer, Pablo A. & Perri, Fabrizio, 2005. "Business cycles in emerging economies: the role of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 345-380, March.
    10. Hatchondo, Juan Carlos & Martinez, Leonardo, 2009. "Long-duration bonds and sovereign defaults," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 117-125, September.
    11. Alejandro Justiniano & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2008. "The Time-Varying Volatility of Macroeconomic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 604-641, June.
    12. Kevin Cowan & Eduardo Levy-Yeyati & Ugo Panizza & Federico Sturzenegger, 2006. "Sovereign Debt in the Americas: New Data and Stylized Facts," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 371, Central Bank of Chile.
    13. Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & César Sosa-Padilla, 2016. "Debt Dilution and Sovereign Default Risk," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(5), pages 1383-1422.
    14. Hernán D. Seoane, 2019. "Time‐Varying Volatility, Default, And The Sovereign Risk Premium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(1), pages 283-301, February.
    15. Martín González‐Rozada & Eduardo Levy Yeyati, 2008. "Global Factors and Emerging Market Spreads," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(533), pages 1917-1936, November.
    16. Satyajit Chatterjee & Burcu Eyigungor, 2012. "Maturity, Indebtedness, and Default Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2674-2699, October.
    17. Karen Kopecky & Richard Suen, 2010. "Finite State Markov-chain Approximations to Highly Persistent Processes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(3), pages 701-714, July.
    18. Aguiar, Mark & Gopinath, Gita, 2006. "Defaultable debt, interest rates and the current account," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 64-83, June.
    19. Nathan Foley‐Fisher & Bernardo Guimaraes, 2013. "U.S. Real Interest Rates and Default Risk in Emerging Economies," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(5), pages 967-975, August.
    20. Cristina Arellano & Ananth Ramanarayanan, 2012. "Default and the Maturity Structure in Sovereign Bonds," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(2), pages 187-232.
    21. Enrique G. Mendoza & Vivian Z. Yue, 2012. "A General Equilibrium Model of Sovereign Default and Business Cycles," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(2), pages 889-946.
    22. Vivek Arora & Martin Cerisola, 2001. "How Does U.S. Monetary Policy Influence Sovereign Spreads in Emerging Markets?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 48(3), pages 1-3.
    23. Yue, Vivian Z., 2010. "Sovereign default and debt renegotiation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 176-187, March.
    24. Vasicek, Oldrich, 1977. "An equilibrium characterization of the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 177-188, November.
    25. David Benjamin, 2008. "Recovery Before Redemption," 2008 Meeting Papers 531, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    26. Javier Bianchi & César Sosa-Padilla, 2024. "Reserve Accumulation, Macroeconomic Stabilization, and Sovereign Risk," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(4), pages 2053-2103.
    27. Juan Jose Cruces & Marcos Buscaglia & Joaquin Alonso, 2002. "The Term Structure of Country Risk and Valuation in Emerging Markets," Working Papers 46, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Apr 2002.
    28. Graciela Laura Kaminsky & Pablo Vega-García, 2016. "Systemic and Idiosyncratic Sovereign Debt Crises," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 80-114.
    29. Bernardo Guimaraes, 2011. "Sovereign default: which shocks matter?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(4), pages 553-576, October.
    30. Jens Hilscher & Yves Nosbusch, 2010. "Determinants of Sovereign Risk: Macroeconomic Fundamentals and the Pricing of Sovereign Debt," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 14(2), pages 235-262.
    31. Francis A. Longstaff & Jun Pan & Lasse H. Pedersen & Kenneth J. Singleton, 2011. "How Sovereign Is Sovereign Credit Risk?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 75-103, April.
    32. Sosa-Padilla, César, 2018. "Sovereign defaults and banking crises," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 88-105.
    33. Bai, Yan & Kim, Seon Tae & Mihalache, Gabriel, 2017. "The payment schedule of sovereign debt," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 19-23.
    34. Lizarazo, Sandra Valentina, 2013. "Default risk and risk averse international investors," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 317-330.
    35. Cristina Arellano, 2008. "Default Risk and Income Fluctuations in Emerging Economies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 690-712, June.
    36. Kastner, Gregor, 2016. "Dealing with Stochastic Volatility in Time Series Using the R Package stochvol," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 69(i05).
    37. Adrien Verdelhan & Nicola Borri, 2010. "Sovereign Risk Premia," 2010 Meeting Papers 1122, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    38. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    39. Demian Pouzo & Ignacio Presno, 2016. "Sovereign Default Risk and Uncertainty Premia," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 230-266, July.
    40. Maltritz, Dominik, 2012. "Determinants of sovereign yield spreads in the Eurozone: A Bayesian approach," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 657-672.
    41. Vikram Rai & Lena Suchanek, 2014. "The Effect of the Federal Reserve’s Tapering Announcements on Emerging Markets," Staff Working Papers 14-50, Bank of Canada.
    42. Jonathan Eaton & Mark Gersovitz, 1981. "Debt with Potential Repudiation: Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 48(2), pages 289-309.
    43. Fender, Ingo & Hayo, Bernd & Neuenkirch, Matthias, 2012. "Daily pricing of emerging market sovereign CDS before and during the global financial crisis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 2786-2794.
    44. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    45. Vasicek, Oldrich Alfonso, 1977. "Abstract: An Equilibrium Characterization of the Term Structure," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(4), pages 627-627, November.
    46. Edwards, Sebastian, 1984. "LDC Foreign Borrowing and Default Risk: An Empirical Investigation, 1976-80," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(4), pages 726-734, September.
    47. Barry Eichengreen & Ashoka Mody, 2000. "What Explains Changing Spreads on Emerging Market Debt?," NBER Chapters, in: Capital Flows and the Emerging Economies: Theory, Evidence, and Controversies, pages 107-134, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    48. Richard Cantor & Frank Packer, 1996. "Determinants and impact of sovereign credit ratings," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 2(Oct), pages 37-53.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alamgir, Farzana & Cotoc, Johnny & Johri, Alok, 2023. "The bribe rate and long run differences in sovereign borrowing costs," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    2. Javier Bianchi & César Sosa-Padilla, 2024. "Reserve Accumulation, Macroeconomic Stabilization, and Sovereign Risk," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(4), pages 2053-2103.
    3. Sosa-Padilla, César & Sturzenegger, Federico, 2023. "Does it matter how central banks accumulate reserves? Evidence from sovereign spreads," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    4. Grace Weishi Gu & Zachary R. Stangebye, 2023. "Costly Information And Sovereign Risk," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1397-1429, November.
    5. Dooyeon Cho & Dong‐Eun Rhee, 2024. "Determinants of market‐assessed sovereign default risk: Macroeconomic fundamentals or global shocks?," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 35-60, April.
    6. Mohsin Waheed & Zulfiqar Hyder, 2023. "What Explains the Volatility in Pakistan’s Sovereign Bond Yields?," SBP Working Paper Series 112, State Bank of Pakistan, Research Department.
    7. Liu, Ailan & Wang, Zhixuan & Wang, Ping, 2024. "Official or unofficial? extreme bounds analysis on the determinants of sovereign default," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    8. Reyes-Heroles, Ricardo & Tenorio, Gabriel, 2019. "Regime-switching in emerging market business cycles: Interest rate volatility and sudden stops," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 81-100.
    9. de Ferra, Sergio & Mallucci, Enrico, 2022. "Sovereign risk matters: Endogenous default risk and the time-varying volatility of interest rate spreads," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    10. Gonzalez-Aguado, Eugenia, 2022. "Interest Rate Shocks and the Composition of Sovereign Debt," TSE Working Papers 22-1379, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & César Sosa-Padilla, 2016. "Debt Dilution and Sovereign Default Risk," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(5), pages 1383-1422.
    2. Javier Bianchi & Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez, 2018. "International Reserves and Rollover Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2629-2670, September.
    3. Lizarazo, Sandra Valentina, 2013. "Default risk and risk averse international investors," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 317-330.
    4. Jeon, Kiyoung & Kabukcuoglu, Zeynep, 2018. "Income inequality and sovereign default," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 211-232.
    5. Juan Carlos Hatchondo & Leonardo Martinez & Francisco Roch, 2022. "Fiscal Rules and the Sovereign Default Premium," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 244-273, October.
    6. de Ferra, Sergio & Mallucci, Enrico, 2022. "Sovereign risk matters: Endogenous default risk and the time-varying volatility of interest rate spreads," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    7. Diego J. Perez, 2015. "Sovereign Debt, Domestic Banks and the Provision of Public Liquidity," Discussion Papers 15-016, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    8. Enrique G. Mendoza & Vivian Z. Yue, 2012. "A General Equilibrium Model of Sovereign Default and Business Cycles," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(2), pages 889-946.
    9. Hernan Seoane, 2016. "Time-varying volatility, default and the sovereign risk premium," 2016 Meeting Papers 1132, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Ricardo Sabbadini, 2018. "Loss Aversion and Search for Yield in Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2018_16, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    11. Engler, Philipp & Große Steffen, Christoph, 2016. "Sovereign risk, interbank freezes, and aggregate fluctuations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 34-61.
    12. Durdu, C. Bora & Nunes, Ricardo & Sapriza, Horacio, 2013. "News and sovereign default risk in small open economies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 1-17.
    13. Aguiar, Mark & Amador, Manuel, 2014. "Sovereign Debt," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 647-687, Elsevier.
    14. Mihalache, Gabriel, 2020. "Sovereign default resolution through maturity extension," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    15. Passadore, Juan & Xu, Yu, 2022. "Illiquidity in sovereign debt markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    16. Bernardo Guimaraes & Lucas Tumkus, 2020. "On the costs of sovereign default in quantitative models," Discussion Papers 2021, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    17. Hatchondo, Juan Carlos & Martinez, Leonardo & Onder, Yasin Kursat, 2017. "Non-defaultable debt and sovereign risk," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 217-229.
    18. Fernando A. Broner & Guido Lorenzoni & Sergio L. Schmukler, 2013. "Why Do Emerging Economies Borrow Short Term?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11, pages 67-100, January.
    19. Takefumi Yamazaki, 2018. "Financial friction sources in emerging economies: Structural estimation of sovereign default models," Discussion papers ron303, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan.
    20. Sosa-Padilla, César, 2018. "Sovereign defaults and banking crises," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 88-105.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27639. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.