A fiscal theory of sovereign risk

Under certain monetary-fiscal regimes the risk of default and thus the emergence of sovereign risk premiums are inevitable. This paper argues that in this context even small differences in the specification of monetary policy can have enormous effects on the equilibrium behavior of default rates and risk premiums. Under some monetary policy rules studied, the conditional expectation of default rates and sovereign risk premiums are constant, so movements in these variables always arrive as a surprise. Under other monetary regimes considered, the equilibrium default rate and the sovereign risk premium are serially correlated and therefore forecastable. The paper also studies the consequences of delaying default. It characterizes environments under which procrastinating on default is counterproductive.