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Horacio Sapriza

Bio: Horacio Sapriza is an academic researcher from Federal Reserve System. The author has contributed to research in topics: Sovereign default & Debt. The author has an hindex of 24, co-authored 76 publications receiving 2440 citations. Previous affiliations of Horacio Sapriza include Rutgers University & Federal Reserve Board of Governors.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a dynamic stochastic small open economy model of sovereign debt and default is proposed to rationalize the claim that high turnover rates/length of tenure of policymakers and the degree of conflict within a country affects sovereign spreads, debt, and default rates.

267 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper investigated the effects of U.S. unconventional monetary policies on sovereign yields, foreign exchange rates, and stock prices in emerging market economies and found that these effects depend on country-specific characteristics.

206 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Abstract: Banking crises have been largely associated with la rge output and welfare losses, and bank bailouts by the public sector are a recurring feature of financial crises. Such stylized facts underscore the importance of a well- functioning financial system for attaining economic stability and growth, as well as the relevance of understanding the relationship between the economic conditions fa ced by the government and the banking sector. In particular, differences and cha nges in explicit (and implicit) government support to banks may affect investors’ i ncentives to hold bank stocks, and thus impact banks’ external financing costs, wh ich may send ripples through the rest of the economy. Similarly, sovereign debt rat ing changes may unveil new information about a country’s fundamentals, generat ing a significant externality for the country’s banking system, and thus they also af fect investors’ incentives to hold bank stocks. We explore the joint impact of sovere ign debt rating changes and government support on bank stock returns from 36 countries between 1995 and 2011. Our findings show that sovereign rating chan ges have a significant and robust impact on bank stock returns. The impact is nonlin ear and varies across banks and countries. Moreover, we find that the effect is as ymmetric and stronger for downgrades than for upgrades, and that large downgr ades have a particularly strong negative impact on returns. Importantly, this resu lt is significantly stronger for banks with more ex-ante government support, providing evidence that investors perceive sovereigns and domestic banks as markedly interconnected.

173 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors study the effect of financial constraints on risk and expected returns by extending the investment-based asset pricing framework to incorporate retained earnings, debt, costly equity, and collateral constraints on debt capacity.
Abstract: We study the effect of financial constraints on risk and expected returns by extending the investment-based asset pricing framework to incorporate retained earnings, debt, costly equity, and collateral constraints on debt capacity. Quantitative results show that more financially constrained firms are riskier and earn higher expected stock returns than less financially constrained firms. Intuitively, by preventing firms from financing all desired investments, collateral constraints restrict the flexibility of firms in smoothing dividend streams in the face of aggregate shocks. The inflexibility mechanism also gives rise to a convex relation between market leverage and expected stock returns. A VOLUMINOUS LITERATURE in corporate finance and macroeconomics has studied in depth the impact of financial constraints on firm value, capital investment, and business cycles. 1 In asset pricing, an important open question is how financial constraints affect risk and expected returns. Using the Kaplan and Zingales (1997) index of financial constraints, Lamont, Polk, and Sa ´ a-Requejo (2001) report that more constrained firms earn lower average returns than less constrained firms. However, Whited and Wu (2006) use an alternative index and find that more constrained firms earn higher average returns than less constrained firms, although the difference is insignificant. Conflicting evidence is difficult to interpret without models that explicitly tie the characteristics in question with risk and expected returns. We aim to fill this gap. We study the effect of financial constraints on risk and expected stock returns by extending the neoclassical investment framework to incorporate retained earnings, debt, costly equity, and collateral constraints on debt capacity. In doing so, we fill an important void in the literature. To the best

169 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: The authors investigated the effects of U.S. unconventional monetary policies on sovereign yields, foreign exchange rates, and stock prices in emerging market economies and found that these effects depend on country-specifc characteristics.
Abstract: We investigate the effects of U.S. unconventional monetary policies on sovereign yields, foreign exchange rates, and stock prices in emerging market economies (EMEs), and we analyze how these effects depend on country-specifc characteristics. We find that, although EME asset prices, mainly those of sovereign bonds, responded strongly to unconventional monetary policy announcements, these responses were not outsized with respect to a model that takes into account each country's time-varying vulnerability to U.S. interest rates affected by monetary policy shocks.

163 citations


Cited by
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01 Feb 1951
TL;DR: The Board of Governors' Semiannual Agenda of Regulations for the period August 1, 1980 through February 1, 1981 as discussed by the authors provides information on those regulatory matters that the Board now has under consideration or anticipates considering over the next six months.
Abstract: Enclosed is a copy of the Board of Governors’ Semiannual Agenda of Regulations for the period August 1, 1980 through February 1, 1981. The Semiannual Agenda provides you with information on those regulatory matters that the Board now has under consideration or anticipates considering over the next six months, and is divided into three parts: (1) regulatory matters that the Board had considered during the previous six months on which final action has been taken; (2) regulatory matters that have been proposed for public comment and that require further Board consideration; and (3) regulatory matters that the Board may consider over the next six months.

1,236 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: This paper developed a small open economy model to study default risk and its interaction with output, consumption, and foreign debt, which predicts that default incentives and interest rates are higher in recessions, as observed in the data.
Abstract: Recent sovereign defaults in emerging countries are accompanied by interest rate spikes and deep recessions. This paper develops a small open economy model to study default risk and its interaction with output, consumption, and foreign debt. Default probabilities and interest rates depend on incentives for repayment. Default occurs in equilibrium because asset markets are incomplete. The model predicts that default incentives and interest rates are higher in recessions, as observed in the data. The reason is that in a recession, a risk averse borrower finds it more costly to repay non-contingent debt and is more likely to default. In a quantitative exercise the model matches various features of the business cycle in Argentina such as: high volatility of interest rates, higher volatility of consumption relative to output, a negative correlation of interest rates and output and a negative correlation of the trade balance and output. The model can also predict the recent default episode in Argentina.

938 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article developed a small open economy model to study default risk and its interaction with output, consumption, and foreign debt, which predicts that default incentives and interest rates are higher in recessions, as observed in the data.
Abstract: Recent sovereign defaults in emerging countries are accompanied by interest rate spikes and deep recessions. This paper develops a small open economy model to study default risk and its interaction with output, consumption, and foreign debt. Default probabilities and interest rates depend on incentives for repayment. Default occurs in equilibrium because asset markets are incomplete. The model predicts that default incentives and interest rates are higher in recessions, as observed in the data. The reason is that in a recession, a risk averse borrower finds it more costly to repay non-contingent debt and is more likely to default. In a quantitative exercise the model matches various features of the business cycle in Argentina such as: high volatility of interest rates, higher volatility of consumption relative to output, a negative correlation of interest rates and output and a negative correlation of the trade balance and output. The model can also predict the recent default episode in Argentina.

783 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper proposed a unified model that generates aggregate and sectoral comovement in response to contemporaneous and news shocks about fundamentals, which is a natural litmus test for macroeconomic models.
Abstract: Aggregate and sectoral comovement are central features of business cycles, so the ability to generate comovement is a natural litmus test for macroeconomic models. But it is a test that most models fail. We propose a unified model that generates aggregate and sectoral comovement in response to contemporaneous and news shocks about fundamentals. The fundamentals that we consider are aggregate and sectoral total factor productivity shocks as well as investment specific technical change. The model has three key elements: variable capital utilization, adjustment costs to investment, and preferences that allow us to parameterize the strength of short-run wealth effects on the labor supply. (JEL

580 citations