Research

First-authored; with Mark Manger (UoT) & Ugo Panizza (IHEID, CEPR)

Graduate Institute Working Paper, 2025 · Forthcoming, Oxford Review of Economic Policy

Emerging market economies (EMEs) regularly tap domestic and international capital markets through scheduled sovereign bond auctions. In this paper, we leverage a novel dataset covering over 75,000 sovereign issuance events and 20,000 securities from 20 EMEs between the early 2000s and 2023 to analyze the determinants of bond issuance choices, focusing on volume, maturity, and currency denomination. We find that local currency (LC) debt issuance is largely associated with refinancing needs, while foreign currency (FX) issuance reflects more strategic and cyclical considerations. In particular, FX issuance correlates with global macroeconomic conditions, interest rate differentials, and investor sentiment. Our findings suggest that EME governments differentiate their debt management strategies based on the currency of issuance, with LC issuance shaped by domestic budget mechanics and FX issuance by external constraints and opportunities.

with Mark Manger, David Mihalyi, Ugo Panizza, Niccolò Rescia, Christoph Trebesch · CEPR Discussion Paper, 2025

This paper introduces the African Debt Database (ADD) - a new, comprehensive dataset that traces both domestic and external debt instruments at a granular level. The main innovation is a detailed mapping of Africa’s domestic debt markets, drawing on rich, new data extracted from government auction reports and bond prospectuses. The database covers over 50,000 individual government loans and securities issued by 54 African countries between 2000 and 2024, amounting to a total of USD 6.3 trillion in debt. For each instrument, it provides harmonized micro-level information on currency, maturity, interest rates, instrument type, and creditor. The data reveal the growing dominance of domestic debt in Africa — albeit with substantial cross-country variation. Four stylized facts stand out: (i) the rapid expansion of domestic debt markets, especially in middle-income countries; (ii) the wide dispersion in borrowing costs and real interest rates; (iii) large cross-country differences in maturity structures and associated rollover risks; and (iv) a rising debt-service burden, particularly due to international bonds. Generally, this project shows that debt transparency is both feasible and valuable, even in data-scarce environments.

Single-authored

The paper investigates how an exogenous depreciation against the U.S. dollar affects corporate profits and government revenues. Using country-level panel regressions (OLS and GMM) alongside a calibrated New Keynesian DSGE model, it shows that domestic-currency depreciation raises corporate income tax (CIT) and total tax revenue in the short run, driven by valuation effects and demand expansion under different currency‐pricing regimes.

Single-authored

Drawing on a novel dataset of commodity deliveries in Chinese exchanges and country‐year export invoicing shares, it explores how China’s growing role as a trade partner and commodity exchange operator influences exporters’ currency choices.