We study sovereign external debt crises over the past 200 years, with a focus on creditor losses, or "haircuts". Our sample covers 327 sovereign debt restructurings with external private creditors over 205 default spells since 1815. Creditor losses vary widely (from none to 100%), but the...

The loans of the IMF, World Bank, and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) are excluded from debt restructuring. This is the result of their preferred creditor status. There are two justifications for the preferred creditor status of MDBs: (a) they give concessional loans, and (b) they...

We document that creditor losses ("haircuts") during sovereign debt restructurings vary across debt maturity. In our novel dataset on instrument-specific haircuts suffered by private creditors in 1999-2020 we find larger losses on short- than long-term debt, independently of the specific haircut...

We study sovereign external debt crises over the past 200 years, with a focus on creditor losses, or "haircuts". Our sample covers 327 sovereign debt restructurings with external private creditors over 205 default spells since 1815. Creditor losses vary widely (from none to 100%), but the...

Many sovereign defaults have occurred worldwide over the past 200 years. An analysis of 321 sovereign debt restructurings since 1815 shows that foreign private and institutional investor losses were 43 percent on average. Notably, beginning in the 1970s, several debt exchanges have increasingly...

Sovereigns issue debt on both domestic and foreign markets and the two debts are uncorrelated in the data. Sovereigns default mostly selectively. We propose a theory to rationalize these observations. A government chooses the optimal combination of two debts to smooth consumption, which is...

We present a theory of determinants of sovereign debt stability on foreign and domestic markets. Besides the two traditional factors - debt size and output contractions, we highlight the role of the third factor: distortionary tax, which hinders the government’s ability to freely raise...

The Common Framework for Sovereign Debt Restructuring provides a process for easing debt burdens on low-income countries but has operated too slowly for the four countries that have so far sought relief under it. Official bilateral creditors that are not members of the Paris Club are often...

Under its Articles of Agreement, the Fund may only provide financing to assist members to resolve their balance of payments problems and restore medium-term external viability and may only do so under adequate safeguards. The Fund's inter-related policies on financing assurances, debt...

The aim of this note is to help stakeholders optimize their decision-making on when, where, and how to use debt-for-development swaps ("debt swaps"), ensuring they bring the intended benefits to all parties involved. It also proposes new approaches to structure these mechanisms, making them less...

This paper focuses on the significant growth of domestic credit once the debt is restructured, and shows that it is not correlated with the size of the haircut. Second, it performs an event study around Ecuador’s sovereign default and restructuring of 2008–2009 to study changes in domestic bank...

Sovereign debt crises are difficult to solve. This paper studies the "holdout problem", meaning the risk that creditors refuse to participate in a debt restructuring. We document a large variation in holdout rates, based on a comprehensive new dataset of 23 bond restructurings with external...

We analyze the effects of government spending in a New-Keynesian model with search and matching frictions featuring endogenous growth through learning-by-doing and skill loss from long-term unemployment. We show that medium-run and long-run output and unemployment multipliers are much larger...

The loans of the IMF, World Bank, and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) are excluded from debt restructuring. This is the result of their preferred creditor status. There are two justifications for the preferred creditor status of MDBs: (a) they give concessional loans, and (b) they...

During the pandemic, public debt in Latin America and the Caribbean rose to more than 70 percent of GDP, and countries are now attempting to lower debt ratios. We analyze past debt reduction episodes and find inflation and the real interest rate were the most frequent main drivers, while higher...

In advanced jurisdictions, the choice of a non-consensual debt restructuring is between a public or a private gatekeeper model where either the court or the licensed insolvency professional respectively approves a restructuring plan that binds dissenting creditors. In the United States (US), the...

This paper provides an overview of the ongoing debate on the international Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM) architecture by highlighting two key aspects, the contractual and the statutory approach, while also alluding to alternatives that have been set forth, such as arbitration,...

This chapter surveys some of the actors in sovereign debt restructurings. Millhouse’s quote above underscores the number and diversity of players in municipal insolvencies. Nevertheless, the number and heterogeneity of the actors involved in municipal and corporate bankruptcies pale in...

This paper explores how selective default expectations affect the pricing of sovereign bonds in a historical laboratory: the German default of the 1930s. We analyze yield differentials between identical government bonds traded across various creditor countries before and after bond market...

During the pandemic, public debt in Latin America and the Caribbean rose to more than 70 percent of GDP, and countries are now attempting to lower debt ratios. We analyze past debt reduction episodes and find inflation and the real interest rate were the most frequent main drivers, while higher...

The guidance note sets out principles governing information sharing in the context of sovereign debt restructurings. It restates the existing Fund governance and policy guidelines for information sharing to help inform and harmonize practices across Fund country teams. In addition to outlining...

Sovereign debt crises are difficult to solve. This paper studies the "holdout problem", meaning the risk that creditors refuse to participate in a debt restructuring. We document a large variation in holdout rates, based on a comprehensive new dataset of 23 bond restructurings with external...