Quantitative models of sovereign default predict that governments reduce borrowing during recessions to avoid debt crises. A prominent implication of this behavior is that the resulting interest rate spread volatility is counterfactually low. We propose that governments borrow into debt crises because of frictions in the adjustment of their expenditures. We develop a model of government good production, which uses public employment and intermediate consumption as inputs. The inputs have varying degrees of downward rigidity, which means that it is costly to reduce them. Facing an adverse income shock, the government borrows to smooth out the reduction in public employment, which results in increasing debt and higher spread. We quantify this rigidity using the OECD Government Accounts data and show that it explains about 70% of the missing bond spread volatility.

This paper proposes that an International Monetary Fund (IMF) policy shift was the reason behind major changes in sovereign debt negotiation outcomes observed in 1989. The new policy, in marked departure from past policy, allowed the IMF to lend to nations in default. The paper highlights the stark improvements in debt forgiveness and post-negotiation debt servicing ability coincident with the IMF policy shift. A theoretical framework is proposed in which the IMF policy shift causes the observed changes in negotiation outcomes. The model highlights the policy’s potential to improve a country’s outside option during negotiations of defaulted debt. In the model, this improvement leads to increased debt forgiveness which in turn leads to less post-negotiation debt servicing difficulties. The model is then used to address an important question regarding the nature of post-negotiation default risk. The case is made that countries face persistent, rather than temporary, default risk after such negotiations. To avert such risk, they moderate their borrowing.

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