Sovereign risk and Dutch disease

Abstract

I study how, in the presence of default risk, the Dutch disease amplifies an inefficiency in the sectoral allocation of capital. In a sovereign default model with commodities and production of traded and non-traded goods, default incentives increase when more capital is allocated to non-traded production. Households do not internalize this, giving rise to an inefficiently large non-traded sector. Commodity windfalls amplify this inefficiency through the classic Dutch disease mechanism. I characterize state-contingent subsidies that implement the efficient allocation and compare them to a simpler subsidy rule that ameliorates the externality. Evidence from spreads, natural-resource rents, and sectoral investment data support the main findings of the model.