In this episode, KBRA’s Global Head of Corporate, Financial, and Government Ratings, Bill Cox, opens an interesting conversation with KBRA Chief Strategist Van Hesser and Joan Feldbaum-Vidra, Head of Sovereign Ratings. Feldbaum-Vidra and Hesser take stock of COVID-19 risks and dynamics mid-crisis and whether the pandemic has truly threatened the golden age of globalization, and more. Topics discussed include:

In this episode, Bill Cox, Global Head of Corporate, Financial, and Government Ratings at KBRA speaks with Joan Feldbaum-Vidra, KBRA’s Head of Sovereign Ratings, about emerging market (EM) sovereign credit challenges amid the COVID-19 pandemic. While the crisis is unusual in its breadth across so many EM economies, the impact is highly differentiated. Other topics discussed include how China’s role as well as changes in lender behaviors and growing pandemic-related debt burdens make the COVID-19 economic disruption different than the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s.