Compared with China’s dominance in world trade, its expanding role in global finance is poorly documented and understood.

Official (government-to-government) lending is much larger than commonly known, often surpassing total private cross-border capital flows, especially du

This paper studies external sovereign bonds as an asset class. We compile a new database of 220,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds

Governments often issue bonds in foreign jurisdictions, which can provide additional legal protection vis-à-vis domestic bonds. This paper studies the

Populism at the country level is at an all-time high, with more than 25% of nations currently governed by populists. How do economies perform under popu

Germany is world champion in exporting capital (“Exportweltmeister”). No other country invests larger amounts of savings outside its borders.

Sovereign defaults are bad news for investors and debtor countries, in particular if a default becomes messy and protracted. Why are some debt crises re

Sovereign governments owe debt to many foreign creditors and can choose which creditors to favor when making payments. This paper documents the de facto

Migration contributes to the circulation of goods, knowledge, and ideas. Using community and individual-level data from Moldova, we show that the emigration episode that started in the late 1990s strongly affected political preferences and electoral...

Human trafficking is a humanitarian problem of global scale, but quantitative research on the issue barely exists. This paper is a first attempt to explore the economic drivers of human trafficking and migrant exploitation using micro data. We argue...