'The IMF's Role in the Prevention and Resolution of Sovereign Debt Crises' provides a guided narrative to the IMF's policy papers on sovereign debt produced over the last 40 years. The papers are divided into chapters, tracking four historical phases: the 1980s debt crisis; the Mexican crisis...

With public debt soaring across the world, a growing concern is whether current debt levels are a harbinger of fiscal crises, thereby restricting the policy space in a downturn. The empirical evidence to date is however inconclusive, and the true cost of debt may be overstated if interest rates...

This article discusses the impetus for, key features of, and recent experience in implementing reforms to international sovereign debt contracts. Recognizing the vulnerabilities in the existing contractual framework for sovereign debt restructuring, the IMF in 2014 endorsed reforms to collective...