Reviving the Case for GDP-Indexed Bonds

Reviving the Case for GDP-Indexed Bonds
Author: Mr.Eduardo Borensztein
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 25
Release: 2002-09-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 145197017X

This paper seeks to revive the case for countries to self-insure against economic growth slowdowns by issuing GDP-indexed bonds. We simulate the effects of GDP-indexed bonds under different assumptions about fiscal policy reaction functions and their output effects and find that they could substantially reduce the likelihood that debt/GDP paths become explosive. The insurance premium would likely be small, because cross-country comovement of GDP growth rates is low and cross-country GDP growth risk is thus largely diversifiable for an investor holding a portfolio of GDP-indexed bonds. Potential obstacles to the emergence of a market for these bonds include the verifiability of GDP data, the trade-off between insurance and moral hazard, and the need for liquidity. The paper discusses institutional fixes and suggests an approach to attempting to start up a market.

Capitalism, Global Change and Sustainable Development

Capitalism, Global Change and Sustainable Development
Author: Luigi Paganetto
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2020-06-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030461432

This book analyzes new forms of capitalism that are manifesting under the pressures of global transformation. By studying economic and environmental indicators in various parts of the world, it seeks to reconcile economic growth with environmental and social sustainability, which is an important issue in both developed and emerging economies. These indicators include the explosive development of digital technologies and new global value chains, which are reshaping economies and societies all over the world. The contributing authors also address the challenge of immigration, the sustainable development transformation, the ties between productivity and social rights, automation and global value chains, the energy transition, and innovation and sustainable growth.

Boosting Fiscal Space

Boosting Fiscal Space
Author: Mr.Jonathan David Ostry
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 47
Release: 2018-03-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484330935

Noting that the aftermath of the global financial crisis has left many advanced economies with very high sovereign debt ratios and some emerging markets with high debt, this report considers whether there are ways to expand fiscal space that do not involve countries paying down debt or promising to do so in the future, to make fiscal consolidation more growth-friendly. It explains that policymakers argue that their fiscal space is limited and that it would be difficult to take advantage of the opportunity of low interest rates to undertake fiscal expansion, and it considers a ways to raise fiscal space that does not require contractionary fiscal policy and whether there is a way to make fiscal consolidation more growth-friendly to produce larger gains in fiscal space. It argues that debt management policies may provide an answer to expanding fiscal space for a given path of primary fiscal balances by reducing the risk that a sovereign may default in bad states and generate a payoff in terms of reduced to real borrowing costs. It describes two debt management policies: issuance of GDP-linked debt and issuance of longer maturity bonds, as opposed to short-term debt. It focuses on the effect of these debt management policies on real borrowing costs and default risk for the sovereign and details the literature on GDP-linked debt and the maturity structure and how the report fills gaps in the literature; how uncertainty affects fiscal space and how debt management can play a role in increasing it, with estimates and simulations of potential gains in fiscal space flowing from debt management; and the sensitivity of the findings to underlying assumptions and policy implications.

Global Debt Database: Methodology and Sources

Global Debt Database: Methodology and Sources
Author: Samba Mbaye
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2018-05-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484353595

This paper describes the compilation of the Global Debt Database (GDD), a cutting-edge dataset covering private and public debt for virtually the entire world (190 countries) dating back to the 1950s. The GDD is the result of a multiyear investigative process that started with the October 2016 Fiscal Monitor, which pioneered the expansion of private debt series to a global sample. It differs from existing datasets in three major ways. First, it takes a fundamentally new approach to compiling historical data. Where most debt datasets either provide long series with a narrow and changing definition of debt or comprehensive debt concepts over a short period, the GDD adopts a multidimensional approach by offering multiple debt series with different coverages, thus ensuring consistency across time. Second, it more than doubles the cross-sectional dimension of existing private debt datasets. Finally, the integrity of the data has been checked through bilateral consultations with officials and IMF country desks of all countries in the sample, setting a higher data quality standard.

Pricing and Hedging GDP-Linked Bonds in Incomplete Markets

Pricing and Hedging GDP-Linked Bonds in Incomplete Markets
Author: Andrea Consiglio
Publisher:
Total Pages: 31
Release: 2018
Genre:
ISBN:

We model the super-replication of payoffs linked to a country's GDP as a stochastic linear program on a discrete time and state-space scenario tree to price GDP-linked bonds. As a by-product of the model we obtain a hedging portfolio. Using linear programming duality we compute also the risk premium. The model applies to coupon-indexed and principal-indexed bonds, and allows the analysis of bonds with different design parameters (coupon, target GDP growth rate, and maturity). We calibrate for UK and US instruments, and carry out sensitivity analysis of prices and risk premia to the risk factors and bond design parameters. We also compare coupon-indexed and principal-indexed bonds.Further results with calibrated instruments for Germany, Italy and South Africa shed light on a policy question, whether the risk premia of these bonds make them beneficial for sovereigns. Our findings affirm that designs are possible for both coupon-indexed and principal-indexed bonds that can benefit a sovereign, with an advantage for coupon-indexed bonds. This finding is robust, but a nuanced reading is needed due to the many inter-related risk factors and design parameters that affect prices and premia.

Macro Markets

Macro Markets
Author: Robert J. Shiller
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 276
Release: 1994-04-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0191521655

Macro Markets puts forward a unique and authoritative set of detailed proposals for establishing new markets for the management of the biggest economic risks facing society. Our existing financial markets are seen as being inadequate in dealing with such risks and Professor Shiller suggests major new markets as solutions to the problem. Shiller argues that although some risks, such as natural disaster or temporary unemployment, are shared by society, most risks are borne by the individual and standards of living determined by luck. He investigates whether a new technology of markets could make risk-sharing possible, and shows how new contracts could be designed to hedge all manner of risks to the individual's living standards. He proposes new international markets for perpetual claims on national incomes, and on components and aggregates of national incomes, concluding that these markets may well dwarf our stock markets in their activity and significance. He also argues for new liquid international markets for residential and commercial property. Establishing such unprecedented new markets presents some important technical problems which Shiller attempts to solve with proposals for implementing futures markets on perpetual claims on incomes, and for the construction of index numbers for cash settlement of risk management contracts. These new markets could fundamentally alter and diminish international economic fluctuations, and reduce the inequality of incomes around the world.

The Premia on State-Contingent Sovereign Debt Instruments

The Premia on State-Contingent Sovereign Debt Instruments
Author: Deniz Igan
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2021-12-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1616357002

State-contingent debt instruments such as GDP-linked warrants have garnered attention as a potential tool to help debt-stressed economies smooth repayments over business cycles, yet very few studies of the empirical properties of these instruments exist. This paper develops a general f ramework to estimate the time-varying risk premium of a state-contingent sovereign debt instrument. Our estimation framework applied to GDP-linked warrants issued by Argentina, Greece, and Ukraine reveals three stylized facts: (i) the risk premium in state-contingent instruments is high and persistent; (ii) the risk premium exhibits a pro-cyclical pattern; and (iii) the liquidity premium is higher and more volatile than that for plain-vanilla government bonds issued by the same sovereign. We then present a model in which investors fear ambiguity and that can account for the cyclical properties of the risk premium.

Sovereign Debt Structure for Crisis Prevention

Sovereign Debt Structure for Crisis Prevention
Author: Mr.Eduardo Borensztein
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2005-01-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1589063775

The debate on government debt in the context of possible reforms of the international financial architecture has thus far focused on crisis resolution. This paper seeks to broaden this debate. It asks how government debt could be structured to pursue other objectives, including crisis prevention, international risk-sharing, and facilitating the adjustment of fiscal variables to changes in domestic economic conditions. To that end, the paper considers recently developed analytical approaches to improving sovereign debt structure using existing instruments, and reviews a number of proposals--including the introduction of explicit seniority and GDP-linked instruments--in the sovereign context.