By Simon Gilchrist, Bin Wei, Vivian Yue, Egon Zakrajšek
The interconnections between the balance sheet of a sovereign and those of global financial institutions can lead to a widening of sovereign spreads unrelated to country-specific fundamentals. This column explores this financial-sovereign risk nexus and documents that a substantial portion of the co-movement among sovereign spreads can be accounted for by changes in global financial risk. Specifically, an increase in global financial risk causes a large and persistent widening of sovereign spreads, with the spillover effects especially pronounced for speculative-grade sovereign debt.