Self-Fulfilling Debt Crises, Revisited: The Art of the Desperate Deal

They refer to these auctions as "desperate deals," the defining feature of which is a price schedule that makes the government indifferent to default or repayment. The government randomizes at the time of repayment, which the authors show can be implemented in pure strategies by introducing stochastic political payoffs or external bailouts. Quantitatively, auctions at fire-sale prices are crucial for generating realistic spread volatility.