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We investigate the correlates of sovereign risk for emerging market borrowers, with a focus on the relative impact of government ideology, government time in office, and macroeconomic conditions. We build upon previous research that identifies partisan signals and macroeconomic conditions as important determinants of sovereign risk assessments, as measured by interest rate spreads on secondary bond markets. In contrast to much of the extant work on this subject, we argue that risk assessments based on partisan signals and macroeconomic conditions are conditional rather than constant. Specifically, the importance to investors of partisan as well as economic signals is contingent on the availability of information with which market actors can assess a particular government's risk type. Where investors have little other information - in particular, no track record related to a government's time in office - they will rely more heavily on partisan signals and macroeconomic indicators. This type of uncertainty regarding a government's attitude toward and propensity for default is likely to generate a partisan risk premium: investors will worry more about, and demand higher spreads from, left-oriented governments. Similarly, when political newcomers, rather than long-serving incumbents, hold office, macroeconomic conditions (specifically, accumulated government debt) will be more salient to investors' risk assessments. In sum, the importance of partisan and macroeconomic considerations to investors is greatest in low-information environments, such as the period surrounding a change in governments. The importance of partisanship and macroeconomic conditions declines as investors become better able to assess the government's type via other information. As the government takes office and as cabinets are formed (and finance ministers and/or central bankers are appointed), markets can make more sophisticated judgments regarding political - and, specifically, default - risk. And, through its appointments as well as its policy actions, the new government is able to signal its policy priorities, to domestic constituents as well as to (domestic and international) investors. The result is that, as investors become more confident in their capacity to assess the risk type of the new government, their risk assessments will be less strongly influenced by partisan and macroeconomic risk indicators. We look to the case of Brazil for preliminary evidence to evaluate these hypotheses. We then test our expectations statistically, using data on sovereign risk spreads for 30 emerging market nations from 1993 to 2004. Our results provide qualified support for our expectations. We find that macroeconomic factors and government default history weigh heavily in the determination of sovereign bond spreads, and that the effect of these indicators is mitigated by governments' time in office. While left governments are penalized with higher bond spreads when they are new to office, this premium diminishes with time. We also find that increasing debt-to-GDP ratios are associated with larger bond spreads for new governments, and that this effect is dampened as a government's time in office increases. Incumbency does not condition the importance of inflation performance on sovereign risk spreads, however. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the conditions under which developing and transition nations engage in currency redenomination. According to the researcher, currency redenomination was employed on 60 occasions during the 1960-2003 period in developing and transition nations. The presence of large-denomination notes was used as an indicator for the need to redenominate, as in the case of Argentina in the 1960s. Another key reason for redenomination is the policy of government to reduce its own domestic currency-denominated obligations.

This paper explores the use of regulatory regimes in global finance, with a focus on the consequences of their design and operation. It begins with a discussion of the overall role of global regulation, and then examines the regulation of global finance, with special attention to its sources as well as to its effects on equity and efficiency. I posit that one of the distinguishing features of rule-setting in the contemporary era is its use of public as well as private actors. In many instances, regulatory efforts depend on public (government) agents to set rules, and on a combination of public and private sector enforcement. Despite the variance across regulatory regimes in the role of private actors, recent scholarship on international institutions has done little to explore the sources of variation in international rule-setting, nor to investigate the consequences of this variation for the character of international regulation. To address this issue, I develop two hypotheses regarding the impact of private sector participation on regulatory efforts ? a distributional hypothesis and an effectiveness hypothesis. I argue that, while private sector participation can increase the effectiveness of international and transnational rule-setting efforts, it also can have distributional consequences. Financial institutions have tended to serve the interests of powerful states, and of powerful constituencies within those states, thereby limiting their progress in equity. This presents the global community with a difficult challenge ? to broaden the voice of developing countries and non-financial actors in the regulatory process, while maintaining the cooperation of developed nations and financial sector players. The paper concludes with an initial empirical assessment of the effectiveness hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project advances the research on the direct investment-human rights relationship by applying a more nuanced analytical framework. While we employ existing aggregate measures of human rights practices, we also formulate a new, more specific index of labor rights practices. The index is based on a 37-point scale of labor rights violations, and draws on information from the ILO, the ICFTU, and the US State Department Human Rights Reports. Our index represents the component of human rights practices that is most likely to be related causally to foreign direct investment flows. In addition, we consider the impact not only of overall levels of FDI, but also of the sectoral composition and geographic sources of FDI. On the basis of our analyses of data on labor standards, human rights, and direct investment in developing nations (for the 1980-1999 period), we conclude that foreign direct investment has a mixed impact on labor and human rights in developing nations. Foreign direct investment is not necessarily good, in a normative sense, for developing nations; but neither is it necessarily harmful. In fact, our evidence suggests that some types of foreign economic activity are associated with improved human and labor rights, but others are related to deteriorations in these rights. We also suggest that the impact of direct investment is contingent on the structure of the domestic economy. In economies that are characterized by more capital-intensive production, workers rights are generally better, even when controlling for a variety of international economic and domestic political factors. Furthermore, we note that, when considering the causal relationships between foreign economic factors and labor rights, it is analytically important to differentiate between labor standards and overall human rights practices, as well as between levels of rights and changes in rights over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What incentives did the classical gold standard provide for its maintenance? How did the benefits of the gold standard help it to be come a central piece of macroeconomic policy in the pre-World War I era? While the gold standard provided a variety of benefits to governments and societies, such as monetary restraint and the facilitation of trade flows, this paper focuses on the impact of the gold standard on sovereign borrowing. I argue that the classical gold standard regime served as both a constraint and an opportunity for governments, in a way similar to present-day currency boards, or to Economic and Monetary Union. Because it required automatic adjustment in response to balance of payments imbalances, as well as the free flow of capital and goods, the gold standard privileged external commitments (the maintenance of par values) over nations? internal conditions. Governments? monetary policy autonomy was surrendered in service to the gold standard regime. At the same time, however, commitment to the gold standard allowed governments to access international capital markets at lower rates of interest; gold convertibility appeared to signal sound government finances, as well as future debt servicing capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]