This African Department Paper examines the rise in international sovereign bonds issued by African frontier economies and recommends policies for potential first-time issuers.

China’s bond market is destined to play an increasingly important role, both at home and abroad. And the inclusion of the country’s bonds in global indexes will be a milestone for its financial market integration, bringing big opportunities as well as challenges for policymakers and investors alike. This calls for a good understanding of China’s bond market structure, its unique characteristics, and areas where reforms are needed. This volume comprehensively analyzes the different segments of China’s bond market, from sovereign, policy bank, and credit bonds, to the rapidly growing local government bond market. It also covers bond futures, green bonds, and asset-backed securities, as well as China’s offshore market, which has played a major role in onshore market development.

What determines the ability of low-income developing countries to issue bonds in international capital and what explains the spreads on these bonds? This paper examines these questions using a dataset that includes emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) that issued sovereign bonds at least once during the period 1995-2013 as well as those that did not. We find that an EMDE is more likely to issue a bond when, in comparison with non-issuing peers, it is larger in economic size, has higher per capita GDP, and has stronger macroeconomic fundamentals and government. Spreads on sovereign bonds are lower for countries with strong external and fiscal positions, as well as robust economic growth and government effectiveness. With regard to global factors, the results show that sovereign bond spreads are reduced in periods of lower market volatility.

This African Department Paper examines the rise in international sovereign bonds issued by African frontier economies and recommends policies for potential first-time issuers.

Recent events have shown that sovereigns, just like banks, can be subject to runs, highlighting the importance of the investor base for their liabilities. This paper proposes a methodology for compiling internationally comparable estimates of investor holdings of sovereign debt. Based on this methodology, it introduces a dataset for 24 major advanced economies that can be used to track US$42 trillion of sovereign debt holdings on a quarterly basis over 2004-11. While recent outflows from euro periphery countries have received wide attention, most sovereign borrowers have continued to increase reliance on foreign investors. This may have helped reduce borrowing costs, but it can imply higher refinancing risks going forward. Meanwhile, advanced economy banks’ exposure to their own government debt has begun to increase across the board after the global financial crisis, strengthening sovereign-bank linkages. In light of these risks, the paper proposes a framework—sovereign funding shock scenarios (FSS)—to conduct forward-looking analysis to assess sovereigns’ vulnerability to sudden investor outflows, which can be used along with standard debt sustainability analyses (DSA). It also introduces two risk indices—investor base risk index (IRI) and foreign investor position index (FIPI)—to assess sovereigns’ vulnerability to shifts in investor behavior.

This paper reports on progress in inclusion of enhanced collective action clauses and modified pari passu clauses as of end-October 2018. The report finds that enhanced CACs have now become the market standard, with only a few issuers standing out from the market trend. Around 88 percent of international sovereign bonds (in aggregate principal amount) issued since October 2014 in the main jurisdictions of New York and England include such clauses. The modified pari passu clause continues to be incorporated as a package with the enhanced CACs, with few exceptions. In line with findings in previous reports, the inclusion of enhanced CACs does not seem to have an observable pricing effect, according to either primary or secondary market data. The outstanding stock of international sovereign bonds without enhanced CACs remains high, with about 39 percent of the outstanding stock including enhanced CACs.

This paper reviews empirical and theoretical work on the links between banks and their governments (the bank-sovereign nexus). How significant is this nexus? What do we know about it? To what extent is it a source of concern? What is the role of policy intervention? The paper concludes with a review of recent policy proposals.