World capital markets have experienced large scale sovereign defaults on a number of occasions, the most recent being Argentina’s default in 2002. In this paper we develop a quantitative model of debt and default in a small open economy. We use this model to match four empirical regularities regarding emerging markets: defaults occur in equilibrium, interest rates are countercyclical, net exports are countercyclical, and interest rates and the current account are positively correlated. That is, emerging markets on average borrow more in good times and at lower interest rates as compared to slumps. Our ability to match these facts within the framework of an otherwise standard business cycle model with endogenous default relies on the importance of a stochastic trend in emerging markets.

Recent sovereign defaults in emerging countries are accompanied by interest rate spikes and deep recessions. This paper develops a small open economy model to study default risk and its interaction with output, consumption, and foreign debt. Default probabilities and interest rates depend on incentives for repayment. Default occurs in equilibrium because asset markets are incomplete. The model predicts that default incentives and interest rates are higher in recessions, as observed in the data. The reason is that in a recession, a risk averse borrower finds it more costly to repay non-contingent debt and is more likely to default. In a quantitative exercise the model matches various features of the business cycle in Argentina such as: high volatility of interest rates, higher volatility of consumption relative to output, a negative correlation of interest rates and output and a negative correlation of the trade balance and output. The model can also predict the recent default episode in Argentina.

Credit constraints that link a private agent’s debt to market-determined prices embody a credit externality that drives a wedge between competitive and constrained socially optimal equilibria, inducing private agents to “overborrow. ” The externality arises because agents fail to internalize the price effects of additional borrowing when the credit constraint binds. We quantify the effects of this inefficiency in a two-sector DSGE model of a small open economy calibrated to emerging markets. The credit externality increases the probability of financial crises by a factor of 7 and causes the maximum drop in consumption to increase by 10 percentage points.

We quantitatively analyze the welfare implications of different consumer bankruptcies rules. We look at a dynamic life cycle model where households face idiosyncratic uncertainty. Bankruptcy rules vary in two dimensions: whether discharge of debt is granted to borrowers on demand (fresh start) and the fraction of income garnished from defaulters. We find that the welfare comparison depends critically upon the nature and magnitude of income and expenses uncertainty.

This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF. The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate. This paper studies overborrowing, financial crises and macro-prudential policy in an equilibrium model of business cycles and asset prices with collateral constraints. Agents in a decentralized competitive equilibrium do not internalize the negative effects of asset fire-sales on the value of other agents ' assets and hence they borrow too much " ex ante, compared with a constrained social planner who internalizes these effects. Average debt and leverage ratios are slightly larger in the competitive equilibrium, but the incidence and magnitude of financial crises are much larger. Excess asset returns, Sharpe ratios and the market price of risk are also much larger. State-contigent taxes on debt and dividends of about 1 and-0.5 percent on average respectively support the planner’s allocations as a competitive equilibrium and increase

In this paper I discuss the role a progressive income tax system and a redistributive pay as you go (PAYGO) social security system can play in insuring and reallocating idiosyncratic as well as aggregate risk. I also argue that the underlying source of market failures generating such a role for government intervention may be crucial when determining the normative consequences of such social insurance.

Investment necessary for growth is risky and often requires external financing. For an emerging market, access to international credit markets is volatile and interest rates reflect risk of default. We present a theoretical model in which emerging market agents have access to a profitable two-period investment project of fixed size greater than their endowment. Credit market imperfections can magnify a small solvency problem into a financial crisis with widespread default and/or currency devaluation. In equilibrium, creditors o¤er single-period debt up to a ceiling based on expected future output. News about a negative productivity shock reduces the debt ceiling imposed by creditors, creating a sudden stop of capital ‡ows. The sudden stop can be severe enough to trigger a debt crisis, when agents prefer default over debt repayment, and/or a currency crisis, as agents attempt to maintain desired consumption by swapping domestic currency for foreign currency to purchase goods. We also show that there are critical thresholds for parameters governing credit market imperfections that separate countries into a safe credit club with low interest rates and steady access and a risky club with high interest rates and volatile access.

Private information and limited enforcement are two frictions that impede the provision of first best insurance against income risk. To mitigate these frictions, societies make costly investments into technologies such as auditing and enforcement systems. The implicit assumption throughout most of the literature is that either or both of these technologies is either costless or infinitely costly. I consider a model of efficient insurance in which at each point in time the principal can choose a level of enforceability that inhibits an agent’s ability to renege on the contract and a level of auditing that inhibits his ability to conceal income. The dynamics of the optimal contract imply an endogenous lower bound on the lifetime utility of an agent, strictly positive auditing at all points in the contract and positive enforcement only when the agent’s utility is sufficiently low. Furthermore, the two technologies operate as complements and substitutes at alternative points in the state space, uncovering dynamics that differ dramatically from the case in which the technologies are studied separately.

Credit constraints linking debt to market-determined prices embody a systemic credit externality that drives a wedge between competitive and constrained socially optimal equilibria, inducing private agents to “overborrow. ” This externality arises because private agents fail to internalize the financial amplification effects of carrying a large amount of debt when credit constraints bind. We conduct a quantitative analysis of this externality in a two-sector dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model of a small open economy calibrated to emerging markets. Raising the cost of borrowing during tranquil times restores constrained efficiency and significantly reduces the incidence and severity of financial crises.

In a model with housing collateral, the ratio of housing wealth to human wealth shifts the conditional distribution of asset prices and consumption growth. A decrease in house prices reduces the collateral value of housing, increases household exposure to idiosyncratic risk, and increases the conditional market price of risk. Using aggregate data for the US, we find that a decrease in the ratio of housing wealth to human wealth predicts higher returns on stocks. Conditional on this ratio, the covariance of returns with aggregate risk factors explains up to eighty percent of the cross-sectional variation in annual size and book-to-market portfolio returns. Regional risk-sharing patterns for US metropolitan areas lend direct support to the housing collateral channel. In times with a high housing collateral ratio, consumption growth is more strongly correlated across regions. Time-variation in the degree of risk-sharing induced by house price changes sheds new light on the consumption correlation puzzle.