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A Global Games Approach to Sovereign Default and Debt Crises
This model investigates the risks involved when a fiscal authority attempts to roll-over a stock of debt when there is the potential for coordination failure by investors. A continuum of investors, after receiving signals about the authority's willingness to repay, decide whether to roll-over the stock of debt. If an insufficient proportion of investors participate then the authority defaults. With one fiscal authority, private information results in a deterministic outcome. When a public signal is available, the model behaves in a similar manner to a sunspot model. In line with much of the global games literature, improving public information has an ambiguous effect on welfare. Finally, the model is extended to include a second fiscal authority, which captures a similar sunspot result and illustrates the potential for externalities in fiscal policy. Lower debt in the less indebted authority can push a more indebted authority into crisis. Lower debt makes the healthier authority relatively more attractive, which causes the investors to treat the heavily indebted authority more conservatively. In certain circumstances, this is sufficient to cause a coordination failure.