Page content
Repatriation of Debt in the Euro Crisis: Evidence for the Secondary Market Theory
This paper uncovers three main empirical regularities concerning cross-border bank positions during the Euro Crisis. First, crisis countries tend to repatriate their debt, i.e. debt issued in crisis countries flowed from foreign to local investors. Second, this repatriation is especially strong for public debt and, third, public debt of crisis countries is reallocated to politically infuential countries within the Euro Area. Standard theories of portfolio allocation and home bias can explain the first pattern at best. We argue that the second and, to some extent, the third pattern constitute evidence in favor of the "secondary market theory" of sovereign debt.