Push and pull determinants of the country risk premium for emerging economies: an econometric appraisal

Abstract

This article aims to identify the main determinants of the country risk premiums CDS 5 Years and EMBI+ for eight emerging economies. Econometric estimations relied on autoregressive GMM (time series) and GMM-DIFF (panel data). The analysis period is 2003-2019 and depends on the country and the data availability (monthly and quarterly data). We have tested push (exogenous) and pull (country-specifics) regressors. The empirical results have shown that some push factors have significant effects, which indicates that the global financial and trade cycles play an essential role in determining emerging country risk premiums. However, those economies may mitigate global influences through some internal macroeconomic policies. In our models, the international reserves stock growth rate was the primary statistically significant pull variable, highlighting the importance of external sound accounts for emerging countries.