Leading indicators of sovereign debt and currency crises: Comparative analysis of 2001 and 2018 shocks in Argentina

Abstract

Aim/purpose – This paper investigates the accuracy of leading indicators in the case of the 2001 sovereign default crisis and the 2018 currency turmoil in Argentina.Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, we conducted early warning signals analysis based on a-priori selected variables. For each of the macroeconomic variables, we computed yearly changes and selected the threshold to minimise the noise-to-signal ratio, i.e. the ratio of percentage of false signals in ‘normal’ times to percentage of good signals in a two-year period preceding each of the crises.Findings – The predictive power of indicators differs significantly in various crisis epi-sodes. For the 2001 crisis, the decline in value of bank deposits was the best leading indicator based on the noise-to-signal ratio. For the 2018 currency crisis, the lowest noise-to-signal ratio was observed for the lending-deposit rate ratio.Research implications/limitations – The survey is limited mostly by the data availabil-ity and their quality.Originality/value/contribution – This paper gives a complex review of the major early warning indicators in the context of the most recent history of Argentina’s economy. It applies a set of classical leading indicators to two modern cases of financial crises. The paper proposes an original ‘knocking the window’ approach to the presentation of tradi-tional warning concepts in the context of current economic events.