Category: Africa

I recently published the report Bond to Happen? Recurring Debt Crises in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Rise of Sovereign Bond Issuance. The report assesses risks and opportunities associated with Eurobond issuance in sub-Saharan Africa. The case studies in the report expose a lack of accountability when it comes borrowing processes in a selection of sub-Saharan African countries. In fact, the process of bond issuance is often plagued by lack of transparency and ultimately legitimacy, from the perspective of the citizens of the issuing country. As this is playing out in the context of a defective framework for sovereign lending and borrowing and a flawed system for debt restructuring, issuing Eurobonds entails many serious risks.

Read some coverage of the report:

• Bond to happen? Recurring debt crises in Sub-Saharan Africa and the rise of sovereign bond issuance (December 9th, 2016, Social Watch)
• Bond to happen? Recurring debt crises in Sub-Saharan Africa and the rise of sovereign bond issuance (December 8th, 2016, Righting Finance)
• Are Norwegian Investments in Sovereign Bonds Responsible? (November 9th, 2016, SLUG)
• Bond to Happen? Recurring Debt-Crises in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Rise of Sovereign Bond Issuance (November 9th, 2016, SLUG, in Norwegian)
• Statsobligasjoner i Afrikanske land – på vei mot nye gjeldskriser? (October 29th, 2016, Dagsavisen, in Norwegian)
• Recurring debt crises in sub-Saharan Africa and the rise of bond issuance (October 7th, 2016, Bretton Woods Project)
• Rapportlansering i Washington (October 7th, 2016, SLUG, in Norwegian)

A paper I wrote with Aleksandr Gevorkyan was recently published in the November 2016 issue of the Review of Development Economics.  The article is Assessing Recent Determinants of Borrowing Costs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Empirically the paper finds that sovereign bond yields are significantly influenced by global volatility, commodity prices and global liquidity—all factors that are out of the control of the sub-Saharan economies in question.

The research was picked up by UN News Centre and the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, and we published op-eds on the findings on Interfima, Developing Economics, Chartered Institute of Development Finance, and Seeking Alpha.