Three countries’ debt profiles: Average maturities in Mexico, Brazil, and Russia

This paper draws on public debt in Brazil, Mexico, and Russia, and develops a bond-by-bond database from 1990 to 2005 that accounts for all available information on buybacks and swaps. We estimate a de facto indicator of average maturity of debt. We analyze the behavior of these three emerging sovereigns as they manage their debt profile and service their debt. We find that average maturity has improved in our three countries from 2000 to 2005. However, this evolution is subject to uncertainty on the possibility of future buybacks, swaps, and other restructurings. Compared to the Brazilian and Russian cases, improvement appears more progressive in Mexico. Moreover, we observe more examples of swaps in Eurobonds in this country. If we consider the original sin criteria, we observe that primary issuance of long-term international debt in domestic currency appears as an exception.