Debt Buybacks Signal Sovereign Countries' Creditworthiness: Theory and Tests.

The authors show that debt buybacks could convey valuable information about indebted countries' willingness to invest and increase debt repayment when creditors are less informed than debtors. In an informational equilibrium, unwilling countries do not repurchase a part of their debt, but willing countries do; and creditors increase debt repayments by offering reliefs only to those countries that repurchase. Data show that creditors systematically grant debt reliefs only to countries with buyback programs; and a country's secondary market debt price is higher when it has a buyback program than if it does not. Copyright 1993 by Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.