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Full-Text Articles in Law
Structuring And Restructuring Sovereign Debt: The Role Of Seniority, Patrick Bolton, Olivier Jeanne
Structuring And Restructuring Sovereign Debt: The Role Of Seniority, Patrick Bolton, Olivier Jeanne
Center for Contract and Economic Organization
In an environment characterized by weak contractual enforcement, sovereign lenders can enhance the likelihood of repayment by making their claims more difficult to restructure ex post. We show, however, that competition for repayment between lenders may result in a sovereign debt that is excessively difficult to restructure in equilibrium. This inefficiency may be alleviated by a suitably designed bankruptcy regime that facilitates debt restructuring.
Odious, Not Debt, Anna Gelpern
Odious, Not Debt, Anna Gelpern
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This article argues that the doctrine of Odious Debt, which has enjoyed a revival since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, frames the problem of odious debt in a way that excludes most of the problematic obligations incurred by twentieth-century despots. Advocacy and academic literature traditionally describe the odious debt problem as one of government contracts with private creditors. Most theories of sovereign debt key off the same relationship. But in the latest crop of cases, including Iraq, Liberia, and Nigeria, private creditors represent a small fraction of the old regime's debts. Most of the creditors are other governments …