a b s t r a c tHousehold borrowing in a foreign currency is a widespread phenomenon in Austria. Thirteen percent of Austrian households report their housing loan to be denominated in foreign currency, mostly Swiss franc. Yet, despite its importance, peculiar character, and acute policy concerns, we know little about the attitudes and characteristics of the households involved in this type of carry trade. We analyze a uniquely detailed financial wealth survey of 2556 Austrian households to sketch a comprehensive profile of the attitudes and characteristics of the households involved. We employ both univariate tests and multivariate multinomial logit models. The survey data suggest that risk seeking, affluent, and married households are more likely to take a housing loan in a foreign currency. Financially literate or high-income households are more likely to take a housing loan in general. These findings partially assuage policy concerns about household default risk on foreign-currency housing loans or household retirement security.

This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate.The paper analyzes and quantifies the importance of sovereign risk in determining corporate default premia (yield spreads). It also investigates the extent to which the practice by rating agencies and banks of not rating companies higher than their sovereign ("country or sovereign ceiling") is reflected in the yields of South African local-currency-denominated corporate bonds. The main findings are: (i) sovereign risk appears to be the single most important determinant of corporate default premia in South Africa; (ii) the sovereign ceiling (in local-currency terms) does not apply in the spreads of the industrial multinational companies in the sample; and (iii) consistent with rating agency policy, however, the sovereign ceiling appears to apply in the spreads of most financial companies in the sample. JEL Classification Numbers: F21, F34, G12, G13, G15

The January 2001 proposal for a New Basel Capital Accord has renewed the interest in obtaining default probabilities for various types of borrowers. This paper uses a panel logit model to estimate default probabilities of 78 emerging market countries as a function of a set of economic and political variables. These sovereign default probabilities are then compared with the default rates associated with the sovereign credit ratings of the two major rating agencies, Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's. Unlike the existing literature, we define the dependent variable ("sovereign default") differently, using the changes in the levels of debt arrears and amounts rescheduled as criteria instead of the levels themselves. The paper finds, first, that the most important determinants of sovereign default appear to be the past repayment performance of a country, the cost of international credit, the volatility of per capita income, political risk, and exchange rate misalignments. Second, the comparison of estimated default probabilities with rating agencies' default rates shows that the latter seem to considerably underestimate sovereign default risk. In other words, sovereign credit ratings appear to be too high on average.

This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate.Transparency is a central element in most aspects of the design and operation of inflation targeting regimes. This paper focuses on three elements of inflation targeting most closely associated with transparency: (i) the institutional arrangements supporting inflation targeting; (ii) the specification of the inflation target; and (iii) the central bank's policy communications. The paper is primarily aimed at providing practical advice to countries planning to develop an inflation targeting framework, but many of the issues are relevant for any credible, independent monetary policy. JEL Classification Numbers: E42, E52, E58

Various studies have shown that medical professionals are prone to follow the incorrect suggestions offered by algorithms, especially when they have limited inputs to interrogate and interpret such suggestions and when they have an attitude of relying on them. We examine the effect of correct and incorrect algorithmic suggestions on the diagnosis performance of radiologists when (1) they have no, partial, and extensive informational inputs for explaining the suggestions (study 1) and (2) they are primed to hold a positive, negative, ambivalent, or neutral attitude towards AI (study 2). Our analysis of 2760 decisions made by 92 radiologists conducting 15 mammography examinations shows that radiologists’ diagnoses follow both incorrect and correct suggestions, despite variations in the explainability inputs and attitudinal priming interventions. We identify and explain various pathways through which radiologists navigate through the decision process and arrive at correct or incorrect decisions. Overall, the findings of both studies show the limited effect of using explainability inputs and attitudinal priming for overcoming the influence of (incorrect) algorithmic suggestions.