Work in progress:
Hidden Debt Revelations, with David Mihalyi, Philipp Nickol and César Sosa-Padilla
Resubmitted to The Quarterly Journal of Economics
NBER Working Paper; World Bank Blog; Summary in The Economist, NPR Planet Money, UNU Wider Statement on the International Financial Architecture
States as Financiers: International Lending in War and Peace, with Carmen M. Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch
NBER Working Paper; summary in NBER Digest and at VoxEU; press coverage in FT, LeMonde, Sueddeutsche
International Risk-Sharing in a Fragmented World, with Javier Bianchi, Giovanni Rosso and César Sosa-Padilla
Revise & resubmit at The Review of Financial Studies
NBER Working Paper; blog by Minneapolis FED; Slides from NBER IFM Spring Meeting
China as an International Lender of Last Resort, with Lukas Franz, Brad Parks, Carmen M. Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch
Resubmitted to the Journal of International Economics (2nd round)
NBER Working Paper; data available here. Selected media coverage: NYT, FT (and Alphaville), WSJ (also see here), Bloomberg, CNN, Economist
How China Collateralizes, with Anna Gelpern, Omar Haddad, Paulina Kintzinger, Brad Parks and Christoph Trebesch
CEPR Discussion Paper No. 20379. Media coverage: Reuters, FAZ (also here), FT (and FT Alphaville)
Opening Up: Capital Flows and Financial Sector Dynamics in Low-Income Developing Countries, with Futoshi Narita
IMF Working Paper No. 2021/237
The Financial Returns on China's Belt and Road, with Lukas Franz, Brad Parks, Carmen M. Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch
Slides from World Bank ABCDE conference, July 2024
Beyond Market Exclusion: Creditor Attrition after Sovereign Default, with Clemens Graf von Luckner
Multilateral Lending, with Javier Bianchi, Giovanni Rosso, and Cesar Sosa-Padilla
Published papers:
Predicting Debt Distress in Low-Income Countries, with Clemens Graf von Luckner, Aart Kraay and Rita Ramalho
World Bank Economic Review, August 2026
Replication package; working paper; presentation by Clemens at the IMF Annual Research Conference
China's Lending to Developing Countries: From Boom to Bust, with Carmen M. Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch
Journal of Economic Perspectives, November 2025
NBER Working Paper 34359; summary in FAZ; debt stock estimates 2000-2021
How China Lends: A Rare Look Into 100 Debt Contracts with Foreign Governments, with Anna Gelpern, Scott Morris, Bradley Parks and Christoph Trebesch
Economic Policy, April 2023
Testimony in the U.S. House of Representatives
Data and Chinese lending contracts are available in a public repository here.
Selected media coverage: The Economist, Bloomberg, Financial Times (also here, here and here), Washington Post, Devex, Reuters, Sueddeutsche, Spiegel
Debt Distress on China's Belt and Road, with Brad Parks, Carmen M. Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch
AEA Papers & Proceedings, May 2023
Data and replication package available here.
Hidden Defaults, with Carmen M. Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch
AEA Papers & Proceedings, May 2022
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9925
Data and replication file; selected media coverage: The Economist (see also here and here), Handelsblatt, Welt, FAZ, Spiegel, WSJ
China's Overseas Lending, with Carmen M. Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch
Journal of International Economics, November 2021
Data and replication available here. Earlier version: NBER WP 26050.
JIE Calvo Award 2024; Summaries available at VoxEU, Harvard Business Review and at CGD (response to critics)
Selected media coverage: The Economist, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNBC, NZZ, FAZ, Der Spiegel