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Duke Law

Debt relief

Law and Economics

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The Price Of Law: The Case Of The Eurozone's Collective Action Clauses, Elena Carletti, Paolo Colla, Mitu Gulati, Steven Ongena Jan 2018

The Price Of Law: The Case Of The Eurozone's Collective Action Clauses, Elena Carletti, Paolo Colla, Mitu Gulati, Steven Ongena

Faculty Scholarship

Do markets value contract protections? And does the quality of a legal system affect such valuations? To answer these questions we exploit a unique experiment whereby, after January 1, 2013, newly issued sovereign bonds of Eurozone countries under domestic law had to include Collective Action Clauses (CACs) specifying the minimum vote needed to modify payment terms. We find that CAC bonds trade at lower yields than otherwise similar no-CAC bonds; and that the quality of the legal system matters for this differential. Hence, markets appear to see CACs as providing protection against the legal risk embedded in domestic-law sovereign bonds.


The Hausmann-Gorky Effect, Mitu Gulati, Ugo Panizza Jan 2018

The Hausmann-Gorky Effect, Mitu Gulati, Ugo Panizza

Faculty Scholarship

For over a century, legal scholars have debated the question of what to do about the debts incurred by despotic governments; asking whether successor non-despotic governments should have to pay them. That debate has gone nowhere. This paper examines whether an Op Ed written by Harvard economist, Ricardo Hausmann, in May 2017, may have shown an alternative path to the goal of increasing the cost of borrowing for despotic governments. Hausmann, in his Op Ed, had sought to produce a pricing penalty on the entire Venezuelan debt stock by trying to shame JPMorgan into removing Venezuelan bonds from its emerging …


Maduro Bonds, G. Mitu Gulati, Ugo Panizza Jan 2018

Maduro Bonds, G. Mitu Gulati, Ugo Panizza

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Variation In Boilerplate: Rational Design Or Random Mutation?, Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati, Robert E. Scott Jan 2017

Variation In Boilerplate: Rational Design Or Random Mutation?, Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Standard contract doctrine presumes that sophisticated parties choose their terminology carefully because they want courts or counterparts to understand what they intended. The implication of this “Rational Design” model of rational behavior is that courts should pay careful attention to the precise phrasing of contracts. Using a study of the sovereign bond market, we examine the Rational Design model as applied to standard-form contracting. In NML v. Argentina, federal courts in New York attached importance to the precise phrasing of the boilerplate contracts at issue. The industry promptly condemned the decision for a supposedly erroneous interpretation of a variant of …


The Pricing Of Non-Price Terms In Sovereign Bonds: The Case Of The Greek Guarantees, Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati Jan 2016

The Pricing Of Non-Price Terms In Sovereign Bonds: The Case Of The Greek Guarantees, Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

In March 2012, Greece conducted one of the biggest and most brutal sovereign debt restructurings ever, asking holders of Greek government bonds to take net present value haircuts of near 80 percent. Greece forced acquiescence to its terms from a large number of its bonds by using a variety of legal strong-arm tactics. With the vast majority of Greek bonds, the tactics worked. There were, however, thirty-six bonds guaranteed by the Greek state, which, because of the weakness of the underlying companies, were effectively obligations of the Greek state. Yet, on these thirty six bonds, even though Greece desperately needed …


25 Years, Where Are We Now? Global Trade & Sovereign Debt, Steven L. Schwarcz Jan 2016

25 Years, Where Are We Now? Global Trade & Sovereign Debt, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Reform Of Imf Conditionality - A Proposal For Self-Imposed Conditionality, Ofer Eldar Jan 2005

Reform Of Imf Conditionality - A Proposal For Self-Imposed Conditionality, Ofer Eldar

Faculty Scholarship

The IMF has faced criticism of its expansive use of conditionality. The paper proposes a new procedure for IMF lending designed to meet these criticisms by arguing for the legalization and formalization of the procedure for IMF lending in the light of legal concepts derived mainly from national administrative laws. The gist of the procedure is that, rather than have the IMF determine loan conditions following informal negotiations with member countries, countries seeking Fund assistance will design the conditions themselves. The IMF will have specified powers under which to review these conditions. Apart from other procedural requirements, conditions will have …