Intro -- Contents -- 1. Open Questions in Sovereign Debt -- 2. Theoretical Underpinnings of Modern Finance -- 3. Costly Talk? Reinterpreting the Soviet Repudiation -- 4. Costa Rica, Public Benefit, and the Rule of Law -- 5. Public and Private Capital in Mid-Century Repayment Norms -- 6....

Main description: Should South Africa be responsible for apartheid-era debt? Should Iraq be tied to Saddam Hussein's excesses? Odette Lienau shows that sovereign debt continuity--the rule that nations must repay loans even after a regime change--relies on absolutist ideas, and explains why the...