Search

Begin New Search Topic Economics Political Geography Global

1. How to Restructure Sovereign Debt: Lessons from Four Decades

Author:
Lee Buchheit, Guillaume Chabert, Chanda DeLong, and Jeromin Zettelmeyer
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
This paper attempts to provide a playbook for the sovereign debt restructuring process, drawing on the experience with sovereign debt restructuring since the 1980s. It begins with a discussion of the participating actors and their interests. It then describes the considerations that must be weighed in designing, negotiating, and concluding a debt restructuring, in light of two problems: asymmetric information between the debtor and the creditors, and creditor coordination problems, which can lead to free riding (the “holdout” problem). The paper focuses on how these problems, which can lead to inefficiently negotiated outcomes, can be managed and minimized in practice.
Topic:
Debt, Economics, Sovereignty, and Finance
Political Geography:
Global

2. Global Terrorism Index 2018: Measuring and understanding the global impact of terrorism

Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Economics & Peace
Abstract:
The GTI is produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) based on data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD). Data for the GTD is collected and collated by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland. The GTD contains over 170,000 terrorist incidents for the period 1970 to 2017. Deaths from terrorism fell for the third consecutive year, after peaking in 2014. The total number of deaths fell by 27 per cent between 2016 and 2017, with the largest falls occurring in Iraq and Syria. Iraq recorded over 5,000 fewer deaths from terrorism in 2017, while Syria recorded over 1,000 fewer deaths. The fall in deaths was reflected in scores on the GTI, with 94 countries improving, compared to 46 that deteriorated. This is the highest number of countries to record a year on year improvement since 2004 and reflects the increased emphasis placed on countering terrorism around the world since the surge in violence in 2013. The large falls in the number of deaths in Iraq and Syria is mainly the result of ISIL’s continuing decline. The number of deaths from terrorist attacks attributed to ISIL fell by 52 per cent in 2017, with total incidents falling by 22 per cent. There was a corresponding decrease in the lethality of attacks, highlighting the weakening capacity of the organisation. ISIL has now lost most of its territory and sources of revenue and is actively redirecting resources away from the Middle East and into North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia.
Topic:
Political Violence, Economics, Terrorism, and Peace
Political Geography:
Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia, Global, and Sub-Saharan Africa

3. Outliers in semi-parametric Estimation of Treatment Effects

Author:
Darwin Ugarte Ontiveros, Gustavo Canavire-Bacarreza, and Luis Castro Peñarrieta
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Advanced Development Studies (INESAD)
Abstract:
Average treatment effects estimands can present significant bias under the presence of outliers. Moreover, outliers can be particularly hard to detect, creating bias and inconsistency in the semi-parametric ATE estimads. In this paper, we use Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate that semi-parametric methods, such as matching, are biased in the presence of outliers. Bad and good leverage points outliers are considered. The bias arises because bad leverage points completely change the distribution of the metrics used to define counterfactuals. Whereas good leverage points increase the chance of breaking the common support condition and distort the balance of the covariates and which may push practitioners to misspecify the propensity score. We provide some clues to diagnose the presence of outliers and propose a reweighting estimator that is robust against outliers based on the Stahel-Donoho multivariate estimator of scale and location. An application of this estimator to LaLonde’s (1986) data allows us to explain the Dehejia and Wahba (2002) and Smith and Todd (2005) debate on the inability of matching estimators to deal with the evaluation problem.
Topic:
Economics, Econometrics, Methods, and Counterfactuals
Political Geography:
Global