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| A Study of Sovereign Debt Risk Cross-Country Spillover: New Evidence from the Frequency Domain |
| LI Zheng, LIU Qi, LU Yanchen
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School of Finance, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics;
School of Economics, Nankai University |
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Abstract In recent years, international institutions have successively warned of the risks of global sovereign debt, arousing great concern among international investors and regulatory authorities. On one hand, monetary and fiscal easing has been conducted to promote economic recovery around the world since the financial crisis of 2008, which has resulted in the expansion of sovereign debt and a heavier debt burden. On the other hand, uncertainties over the global economy, the costs of financing, and the pressures for debt-repayment have all increased in the complex and volatile international environment.
In this context, the sovereign debt risk faced by each country rises not only on its own, but also due to the spillovers from other countries. Existing studies have demonstrated that economic fundamentals and market factors are the main determinants of sovereign debt risk, and while the former mainly affects the long-term sovereign debt risk, the latter mostly influences the short-term risk. Therefore, the cross-country spillover of sovereign debt risk which arises due to the connectedness of economic fundamentals and market factors between nations should also show different short-term and long-term effects.
Therefore, in considering the duration of sovereign debt risk spillover among countries, this study investigates both the short-term and long-term cross-country spillover effects of sovereign debt risk in terms of the frequency domain. The analysis uses the BK spillover index approach, which is based on the spectral representation of generalized forecast error variance decomposition (Baruník and Krehlík, 2018). Our study is based on a sample of 14 countries whose GDP rank among the top 20 in the world from November of 2008 to June of 2019. The sovereign debt risk of these countries is measured by the sovereign CDS spreads.
We find several significant patterns. First, the cross-country spillover effects of sovereign debt risk are significant in both short and long terms, and total spillover in the time domain is mainly driven by short-term risk spillover. Second, we find a linear relationship between short-term and long-term risk output levels, but concerning risk input, different types of countries present different relationships and form two main clusters. The short-term risk input is higher than the long-term risk input for emerging market countries that have strong short-term vulnerability. Third, the greater the debt risk of the risk-output country, the greater its long-term spillover risk to other countries. Correspondingly, the greater the risk of the risk-input country, the greater is its short-term spillover risk from other countries. Moreover, trade volume, financial market integration, and business cycle synchronization between two countries are all positively correlated to the long-term spillover risk, but their correlations with short-term risk spillover are not significant. Fourth, both the short-term and long-term sovereign debt risk spillover networks show obvious characteristics of regional clustering. In the short-term spillover network, a country always has clear connections with a narrow group of countries—usually those that are in the same region or have similar economic and financial environments. However, in the long-term spillover network, the connections can extend to countries out of the narrow group through economic and trade relations.
Our study has three types of policy implications. First, market regulators should be aware of the sovereign debt risks from cross-country spillovers, and they should actively strengthen international cooperation in terms of financial supervision. Such measures can help regulators accurately evaluate the risk levels of other countries, and thus respond quickly to the risk and minimize the overall losses. Second, it is important to build a differentiated regulatory system for long-term and short-term sovereign debt risk spillovers. The dominant risk of short-term sovereign debt spillover should receive more attention and be subjected to daily supervision. Finally, measures to prevent long-term and short-term sovereign debt risks should be considered separately. In the short term, it is essential for countries, and especially for emerging market countries, to enhance disclosure of assets as a means to reduce information asymmetry. It is also essential to improve financial supervision as a means to avoid dramatic changes in short-term capital inflows or outflows. In the long term, governments should reduce their fiscal deficits, trade deficits, and foreign debts, and balance their debt structures to reduce their sovereign debt risk. Furthermore, each country should improve the ability of its economic and financial system to resist economic shocks and risk spillovers from other countries.
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Received: 25 October 2019
Published: 02 October 2020
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