This paper provides a comprehensive survey of pertinent issues on sovereign debt restructurings, based on a newly constructed database. This is the first complete dataset of sovereign restructuring cases, covering the six decades from 1950–2010; it includes 186 debt exchanges with foreign banks and bondholders, and 447 bilateral debt agreements with the Paris Club. We present new stylized facts on the outcome and process of debt restructurings, including on the size of haircuts, creditor participation, and legal aspects. In addition, the paper summarizes the relevant empirical literature, analyzes recent restructuring episodes, and discusses ongoing debates on crisis resolution mechanisms, credit default swaps, and the role of collective action clauses.

The current approach to resolving sovereign debt crises does not work: sovereign debt restructurings come too late and address too little. Though unresolved debt crises impose enormous costs on societies, many recent restructurings have not been deep enough to provide the conditions for economic recovery (as illustrated by the Greek debt restructuring of 2012). And if the debtor decides not to accept the terms demanded by the creditors, finalizing a restructuring can be slowed by legal challenges (as illustrated by the recent case of Argentina, deemed as "the trial of the century"). A fresh start for distressed debtors is a basic principle of a well-functioning market economy, yet there is no international bankruptcy framework for sovereign debts. While this problem is not new, the United Nations and the global community are now willing to do something about it. Providing guidance for those who intend to take up reform, this book assesses the relative merits of various debt-restructuring proposals, especially in relation to the main deficiencies of the current nonsystem. With contributions by leading academics and practitioners, Too Little, Too Late reflects the overwhelming consensus among specialists on the need to find workable solutions.

Conventional wisdom holds that all nations must repay debt. Regardless of the legitimacy of the regime that signs the contract, a country that fails to honor its obligations damages its reputation. Yet should today's South Africa be responsible for apartheid-era debt? Is it reasonable to tether postwar Iraq with Saddam Hussein's excesses? Rethinking Sovereign Debt is a probing analysis of how sovereign debt continuity--the rule that nations should repay loans even after a major regime change, or else expect consequences--became dominant. Odette Lienau contends that the practice is not essential for functioning capital markets, and demonstrates its reliance on absolutist ideas that have come under fire over the last century. Lienau traces debt continuity from World War I to the present, emphasizing the role of government officials, the World Bank, and private markets in shaping our existing framework. Challenging previous accounts, she argues that Soviet Russia's repudiation of Tsarist debt and Great Britain's 1923 arbitration with Costa Rica hint at the feasibility of selective debt cancellation. Rethinking Sovereign Debt calls on scholars and policymakers to recognize political choice and historical precedent in sovereign debt and reputation, in order to move beyond an impasse when a government is overthrown.

This paper studies the effect of sovereign debt restructurings with external private creditors on growth during the period 1970-2010. We find that there are bad and good (or not so bad) debt restructurings for growth. While growth generally declines in the aftermath of a sovereign debt restructuring, agreements that allow countries to exit a default spell (final restructurings) are associated with improving growth. The impact can be significant. In general, three years after restructuring, growth is about 5 percent lower compared to countries that did not face restructuring over the same period. The exception is for final restructurings, which result in positive growth in the years immediately after the restructuring. Final restructurings tend to be better for growth because they reduce countries’ debt, with the strongest effect for countries that exit restructurings with relatively low debt levels.

High public debt often produces the drama of default and restructuring. But debt is also reduced through financial repression, a tax on bondholders and savers via negative or belowmarket real interest rates. After WWII, capital controls and regulatory restrictions created a captive audience for government debt, limiting tax-base erosion. Financial repression is most successful in liquidating debt when accompanied by inflation. For the advanced economies, real interest rates were negative 1⁄2 of the time during 1945–1980. Average annual interest expense savings for a 12—country sample range from about 1 to 5 percent of GDP for the full 1945–1980 period. We suggest that, once again, financial repression may be part of the toolkit deployed to cope with the most recent surge in public debt in advanced economies.

The Western powers established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank after World War II as "permanent machinery" to anchor the Bretton Woods system. When developing countries began experiencing debt problems in the late 1960s, the Paris Club took shape as "ad hoc machinery" to restructure debt from export credit agencies. A decade later the London Club process emerged to handle workouts of commercial bank debt. Restructuring debt in the form of bonds became an issue in the late 1990s in Argentina and several other nations, and the IMF recently proposed a permanent mechanism to deal with that challenge. Restructuring Sovereign Debt explains why ad hoc machinery would function more effectively in the Bretton Woods system. By describing in detail the origins and operations of the London Club and Paris Club, Lex Rieffel highlights the pragmatism and flexibility associated with ad hoc approaches. He also recalls earlier proposals for creating permanent debt restructuring machinery and the reasons why they were not adopted. Recognizing that the issue of sovereign debt workout is complex, Rieffel has provided a comprehensive and detailed exposition of this important policy issue. Rieffel's book is an important tool for policymakers and the public, particularly as the global community seeks to resolve the debt problems of countries as diverse as Argentina, Iraq, and Côte d'Ivoire.

This paper provides an overview of sovereign debt portfolio risks and discusses various liability management operations (LMOs) and instruments used by public debt managers to mitigate these risks. Debt management strategies analyzed in the context of helping reach debt portfolio targets and attain desired portfolio structures. Also, the paper outlines how LMOs could be integrated into a debt management strategy and serve as policy tools to reduce potential debt portfolio vulnerabilities. Further, the paper presents operational issues faced by debt managers, including the need to develop a risk management framework, interactions of debt management with fiscal policy, monetary policy, and financial stability, as well as efficient government bond markets.

The book sheds light on the perhaps most important legal conundrum in the context of sovereign debt restructuring: the holdout creditor problem. Absent an international bankruptcy regime for sovereigns, holdout creditors may delay or even thwart the efficient resolution of sovereign debt crises by leveraging contractual provisions and, in an increasing number of cases, by seeking to enforce a debt claim against the sovereign in courts or international tribunals. Following an introduction to sovereign debt and its restructuring, the book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the holdout creditor problem in the context of the two largest sovereign debt restructuring operations in history: the Argentine restructurings of 2005 and 2010 and the 2012 Greek private sector involvement. By reviewing numerous lawsuits and arbitral proceedings initiated against Argentina and Greece across a dozen different jurisdictions, it distils the organizing principles for ongoing and future cases of sovereign debt restructuring and litigation. It highlights the different approaches judges and arbitrators have adopted when dealing with holdout creditors, ranging from the denial of their contractual right to repayment on human rights grounds to leveraging the international financial infrastructure to coerce governments into meeting holdouts’ demands. To this end, it zooms in on the role the governing law plays in sovereign debt restructurings, revisits the contemporary view on sovereign immunity from suit and enforcement in the international debt context, and examines how creditor rights are balanced with the sovereign’s interest in achieving debt sustainability. Finally, it advances a new genealogy of holdouts, distinguishing between official and private sector holdouts and discussing how the proliferation of new types of uncooperative creditors may affect the sovereign debt architecture going forward. While the book is aimed at practitioners and scholars dealing with sovereign debt and its restructuring, it should also provide the general reader with the understanding of the key legal issues facing countries in debt distress. Moreover, by weaving economic, financial, and political considerations into its analysis of holdout creditor litigation and arbitration, the book also speaks to policymakers without a legal background engaged in the field of international finance and economics.

International law is much debated and discussed, but poorly understood. Does international law matter, or do states regularly violate it with impunity? If international law is of no importance, then why do states devote so much energy to negotiating treaties and providing legal defenses for their actions? In turn, if international law does matter, why does it reflect the interests of powerful states, why does it change so often, and why are violations of international law usually not punished? In this book, Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner argue that international law matters but that it is less powerful and less significant than public officials, legal experts, and the media believe. International law, they contend, is simply a product of states pursuing their interests on the international stage. It does not pull states towards compliance contrary to their interests, and the possibilities for what it can achieve are limited. It follows that many global problems are simply unsolvable. The book has important implications for debates about the role of international law in the foreign policy of the United States and other nations. The authors see international law as an instrument for advancing national policy, but one that is precarious and delicate, constantly changing in unpredictable ways based on non-legal changes in international politics. They believe that efforts to replace international politics with international law rest on unjustified optimism about international law's past accomplishments and present capacities.