IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/5528.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bloodshed or Reforms? The Determinants of Sovereign Bond Spreads in 1870-1913 and Today

Author

Listed:
  • Sussman, Nathan
  • Yafeh, Yishay
  • Mauro, Paolo

Abstract

Drawing on a newly-collected data set on bond yields, macroeconomic variables, and news of various categories for a panel of emerging markets, we provide the first comparative analysis of the determinants of sovereign bond spreads in the first era of financial globalization and bond finance (1870-1913) and today (1994-2002). We find that news about wars or episodes of politically-motivated violence are a significant and robust determinant of spreads; fiscal variables also play a role; in contrast, news about institutional reforms seldom have a rapid and significant impact. There are also important differences between the two eras: country-specific fundamentals account for a greater share of variation in spreads during the pre-WWI period than today.

Suggested Citation

  • Sussman, Nathan & Yafeh, Yishay & Mauro, Paolo, 2006. "Bloodshed or Reforms? The Determinants of Sovereign Bond Spreads in 1870-1913 and Today," CEPR Discussion Papers 5528, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5528
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP5528
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paolo Mauro & Nathan Sussman & Yishay Yafeh, 2002. "Emerging Market Spreads: Then versus Now," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 695-733.
    2. Marc Flandreau & Nathan Sussman, 2004. "Old sins. Exchange Clauses and European Foreign Lending in the 19th Century," Working Papers hal-01065494, HAL.
    3. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/324 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    5. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/324 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Mauro, Paolo & Sussman, Nathan & Yafeh, Yishay, 2007. "Emerging Markets and Financial Globalization: Sovereign Bond Spreads in 1870-1913 and Today," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199226139.
    7. Flandreau, Marc & Sussman, Nathan, 2004. "Old Sins: Exchange Rate Clauses and European Foreign Lending in the 19th Century," CEPR Discussion Papers 4248, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. North, Douglass C. & Weingast, Barry R., 1989. "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 803-832, December.
    9. Daron Acemoglu, 2005. "Constitutions, Politics and Economics: A Review Essay on Persson and Tabellini's "The Economic Effect of Constitutions"," NBER Working Papers 11235, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    11. Bordo, Michael D. & Rockoff, Hugh, 1996. "The Gold Standard as a “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval”," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(2), pages 389-428, June.
    12. Obstfeld,Maurice & Taylor,Alan M., 2005. "Global Capital Markets," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521671798, November.
    13. Hong G. Min, 1998. "Determinants of emerging market bond spread : do economic fundamentals matter?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1899, The World Bank.
    14. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2005. "The Economic Effects of Constitutions," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262661926, December.
    15. Dell'Ariccia, Giovanni & Schnabel, Isabel & Zettelmeyer, Jeromin, 2006. "How Do Official Bailouts Affect the Risk of Investing in Emerging Markets?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(7), pages 1689-1714, October.
    16. Sy, Amadou N. R., 2002. "Emerging market bond spreads and sovereign credit ratings: reconciling market views with economic fundamentals," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 380-408, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/806 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Asaf Zussman & Noam Zussman & Morten Ørregaard Nielsen, 2008. "Asset Market Perspectives on the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(297), pages 84-115, February.
    3. Moser, Christoph, 2007. "The Impact of Political Risk on Sovereign Bond Spreads - Evidence from Latin America," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Göttingen 2007 24, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    4. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/806 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marc Flandreau & Juan H. Flores & Norbert Gaillard & Sebastián Nieto-Parra, 2010. "The End of Gatekeeping: Underwriters and the Quality of Sovereign Bond Markets, 1815–2007," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2009, pages 53-92, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Mr. Barry J. Eichengreen & Ms. Asmaa A ElGanainy & Rui Pedro Esteves & Kris James Mitchener, 2019. "Public Debt Through the Ages," IMF Working Papers 2019/006, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Barry Eichengreen & Asmaa El-Ganainy & Rui Esteves & Kris James Mitchener, 2019. "Public Debt Through the Ages," NBER Working Papers 25494, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Meissner, Christopher M., 2014. "Growth from Globalization? A View from the Very Long Run," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 8, pages 1033-1069, Elsevier.
    5. Minkler, Lanse & Prakash, Nishith, 2017. "The role of constitutions on poverty: A cross-national investigation," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 563-581.
    6. Baland, Jean-Marie & Moene, Karl Ove & Robinson, James A., 2010. "Governance and Development," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4597-4656, Elsevier.
    7. Chris Jeffords & Lanse Minkler, 2016. "Do Constitutions Matter? The Effects of Constitutional Environmental Rights Provisions on Environmental Outcomes," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(2), pages 294-335, May.
    8. Pierre MANDON & Clément MATHONNAT, 2014. "Forms of Democracies and Financial Development," Working Papers 201421, CERDI.
    9. Pierre Mandon & Clément Mathonnat, 2015. "Forms of Democracies and Financial Development," Working Papers halshs-01196108, HAL.
    10. Pierre Mandon & Clément Mathonnat, 2014. "Forms of Democracies and Financial Development," CERDI Working papers halshs-01084679, HAL.
    11. Pierre Mandon & Clément Mathonnat, 2015. "Forms of Democracies and Financial Development," CERDI Working papers halshs-01196108, HAL.
    12. Pierre Mandon & Clément Mathonnat, 2014. "Forms of Democracies and Financial Development," Working Papers halshs-01084679, HAL.
    13. Moser, Christoph, 2007. "The Impact of Political Risk on Sovereign Bond Spreads - Evidence from Latin America," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Göttingen 2007 24, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    14. Pierre MANDON & Clément MATHONNAT, 2015. "Forms of Democracies and Financial Development," Working Papers 201523, CERDI.
    15. Eicher, Theo S. & Schreiber, Till, 2010. "Structural policies and growth: Time series evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 169-179, January.
    16. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2010. "Businessman Candidates," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 718-736, July.
    17. Bordo, Michael D. & Rousseau, Peter L., 2006. "Legal-political factors and the historical evolution of the finance-growth link," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(3), pages 421-444, December.
    18. James C. Rockey, 2007. "Which Democracies Pay Higher Wages?," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 07/600, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    19. Méon, Pierre-Guillaume & Sekkat, Khalid, 2022. "A time to throw stones, a time to reap: how long does it take for democratic transitions to improve institutional outcomes?," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(3), pages 429-443, June.
    20. Michael D. Bordo & Christopher M. Meissner & Marc D. Weidenmier, 2006. "Currency Mismatches, Default Risk, and Exchange Rate Depreciation: Evidence from the End of Bimetallism," NBER Working Papers 12299, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Emerging markets; Financial globalization; Bond yields;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • N20 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - General, International, or Comparative

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5528. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.