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A note on allowing state bankruptcy

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  • Deng, Minjie

Abstract

U.S. states are sovereign entities and can’t declare bankruptcy as cities and municipalities. This paper examines the impact of a switch in sovereign bankruptcy rules that allows declaring bankruptcy from an economics model perspective. Allowing bankruptcy increases ex-ante risks for the government to refuse repayment, but provides ex-post benefits of reducing default costs and saving federal bailouts. This paper provides a simple framework to analyze this tradeoff. Event analysis shows that an unexpected switch in bankruptcy rules that allows for bankruptcy would decrease government debt-to-GDP ratio by 9.2 percentage points, increase consumption by 0.69 percent, but increase spread by 1.1 percentage points.

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  • Deng, Minjie, 2025. "A note on allowing state bankruptcy," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29, pages 1-1, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:macdyn:v:29:y:2025:i::p:-_47
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