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...

Negotiations to restructure sovereign debts are protracted, taking on average almost 8 years to complete. In this paper we construct a new database (the most extensive of its kind covering ninety recent sovereign defaults) and use it to document that these negotiations are also ineffective in...

This chapter is on quantitative models of sovereign debt crises in emerging economies. We interpret debt crises broadly to cover all of the major problems a country can experience while trying to issue new debt, including default, sharp increases in the spread and failed auctions. We examine the...

In 2007, countries in the Euro periphery were enjoying stable growth, low deficits, and low spreads. Then the financial crisis erupted and pushed them into deep recessions, raising their deficits and debt levels. By 2010,they were facing severe debt problems. Spreads increased and, surprisingly,...

This paper discusses some of the legal aspects of Collective Action Clauses (CACs) in the context of the Eurozone and then approaches the broader economic issue of why it may be useful to have more efficient CACs, such as single-limb CACs, and when and in what circumstances it may be appropriate...

The model presented in this paper shows that the outcome of a leveraged buyback of sovereign debt depends on the seniority structure of the deal. If the institution lending the funds needed for the buyback is senior, the debtor country benefits from the deal and the market price of bonds...

This paper calls attention to the role of the secondary market in shortening the duration of sovereign debt renegotiation. Consider a dynamic bargaining game with incomplete information between a government and creditors. The creditors' reservation is private information, and the government...

In this comment, we take a helicopter tour of the history of notions of "equality" and "justice" in sovereign debt restructuring in particular, and in the division of property more generally, and show that these concerns have existed for centuries, if not millennia. We argue that the issue at...

This article systematically examines sovereign debt restructuring in light of bankruptcy reorganization law principles. It proposes that a simple and arguably practical convention, based on just three of these principles, would encourage free market funding of troubled States, thereby avoiding...

Over the past few years there has been an active debate among policy-makers on appropriate mechanisms for restructuring sovereign debt, particularly international bonds. This paper develops a simple theoretical model to analyse the merits of these proposals. The analysis suggests that collective...