Law Commons^™

Redesigning The International Lender Of Last Resort, Patrick Bolton, David A. Skeel Jr.

Center for Contract and Economic Organization

This paper is concerned with the issue of how to balance bailouts (or "lending into arrears") with debt reductions (or "private sector involvement") in the resolution of sovereign debt crises. It provides a review of recent proposals for improving the sovereign debt restructuring process. In addition to defending a sovereign bankruptcy proposal we have put forward in recent work, this article proposes a major reorientation of the IMF's role in sovereign debt crises.