Policy Brief 16, September 2014
Resolving Debt Crises: How a Debt Resolution Mechanism Would Work
The issue of foreign debt has made a major comeback. This is due to the crisis in Europe, in which many countries had to seek big bailouts to keep them from defaulting on their loan payments.
Before this, debt crises have been associated with African and Latin American countries. In 1997-99, three East Asian countries also joined the indebted countries’ club.
Last year, European countries, notably Germany, insisted that private creditors share the burden of resolving the Greek crisis. They had to take a “haircut” of about half, meaning that they would be repaid only half the amount they were owed.
It is increasingly realised that bailouts, where new loans are given to indebted countries in order to enable them to keep up to date with paying their old loans in full, are not enough and may be counter-productive, when the countries are facing a problem of insolvency and not just temporary lack of liquidity.
This article was tagged: Debt Sustainability, Financial Crisis, Public Debt, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
