The opportunistic issuance literature provides an alternative
explanation. It attributes the pattern of FC debt
issuance that we observe to the simple desire on the part
of international bond issuers to minimize their borrowing
costs they expect to incur over time. Numerous studies
provide evidence that the amount of bonds issued in
a given currency by foreign issuers is inversely proportional
to the difference between local and foreign interest
rates. These findings implicitly assume that foreign bond
issuers leave their currency risk unhedged. While this
type of ‘uncovered’ FC bond issuance undoubtedly occurs,
evidence suggests that a significant portion of FC
bonds are immediately hedged back into the issuer’s
home currency with currency swaps. In a more novel
set of studies, McBrady and Schill (2007) and McBrady
et al. (2010) find evidence that bond issuers also opportunistically
select issuance currencies in an attempt to
capitalize on this type of hedged (or ‘covered’) interest
cost savings as well.