In April 2002 the International Monetary Fund introduced a sovereign bankruptcy proposal only to be rebuffed by the United States Treasury. Where the IMF wanted a mandatory bankruptcy regime, the Treasury wanted to solve distress problems with contractual devices. Sovereign bondholders and...

A sovereign seeking to raise funds in the bond market may choose to issue the debt under either local or foreign parameters. This decision involves a tradeoff between the sovereign retaining discretion in managing the issue on the one hand and relinquishing control of the issue to third parties...

Standard contract terms are “sticky”: they rarely change, even if change appears to be in the parties' interest. Multiple theories to explain stickiness do not reach consensus on its causes. We investigate the role of stickiness in sovereign bond contracts, where it would be especially...

A body of empirical research in finance has attempted to assess whether stocks associated with sinful behavior (companies selling alcohol, tobacco, gambling activities, etc.) suffer from a market penalty. This question has been less studied in the sovereign bond market, but there is some...

Unnoticed in the literature on sovereign bonds, an innovation has been taking place over the past decade and a half. Starting with a single issuance in 2006 by Mexico and two issuances by Brazil in 2007, some issuers have been using “doomsday” or “make whole” call provisions. These are...

Countries with large debts stocks are vulnerable to the vagaries of the markets. Confidence crises can arise out of nowhere, constricting access to the markets. Hence, the question arises as to whether these countries should put in place mechanisms that will help them better prepare for the...

English Abstract: Argentina is once again seeking to restructure its external debt. To facilitate this process, the country is proposing to use the state-of-the-art collective action clause that was included in the bonds Argentina started issuing in the Spring of 2016. When it uncloaked its...

In 2016, its economy in shambles and looking to defer payment on its debts, the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro proposed a multi-billion dollar debt swap to holders of bonds issued by the government's crown jewel, state-owned oil company Petroleós de Venezuela S.A. (“PDVSA”). A new...

Commercial databases now make available to paying clients information about the legal terms in sovereign loan contracts. This information is important to academic researchers, to policy institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, and to investors and other market actors. For a random...