Sovereign Debt at Square One

How to Default on Sovereign Debt

Sovereign debt restructurings with private creditors

A New Approach to Eurozone Sovereign Debt

The Root of All Sovereign Debt Crises

One of the key challenges is the negative feedback loop between the weaknesses of many banks and the doubts about the peripheral countries sovereign debt. The sovereign debt and banking crises have become even more closely interlinked as banks bought greater amounts of their home countries sovereign debt.

Table 3 Recent sovereign debt restructurings with private creditors main features

15. Reiterates the importance of the orderly resolution of sovereign debt crises, notes the increasing voluntary use of collective action clauses in international sovereign bonds, and takes note of the efforts led by sovereign debtors and private creditors to develop a voluntary code of conduct for the resolution of sovereign debt crises

Noted the request of Iraq for the cancellation or reduction of their sovereign debt.

The solution to breaking the nexus between sovereign debt crises and banking crises is straightforward limit banks to lending where evaluation of borrowers willingness and ability to repay isn t a great leap in the dark. This means no cross border sovereign debt (or esoteric instruments, such as collateralized debt obligations).

When a sovereign decides that its foreign debt is unsustainable, the government and its creditors have had to negotiate among themselves about what to do. For sovereign bonds held by other sovereigns, the Paris Club of creditor countries has developed procedures for handling the debt.

Recognizing the current debate on sovereign debt restructuring, especially the efforts led by sovereign debtors and private creditors to develop a voluntary code of conduct, and stressing that modalities for sovereign debt restructuring should be voluntary, market friendly and flexible, with due consideration of the specific circumstances of individual countries, and should result from the participation of all relevant stakeholders,

(f) continue deliberations on the creation of a framework to deal effectively with all sovereign debt of developing countries.

More broadly, the ECB s marginal lending facility is an indirect means of monetizing sovereign debt. It is an even less direct way to address the private, related debt overhang.

Finally, GDP indexed bonds and other tools for dealing sensibly with unsustainable debt could be applied exclusively to member states debt not covered by the program and in line with international best practices for sovereign debt management.

Nonetheless, Argentina s latest debt trauma shows that the global system for sovereign debt workouts remains badly in need of repair. Deepening domestic debt markets and perhaps change along the lines proposed by the IMF is sorely needed.

Their economies are still tumbling, and the debt continues to grow. The credit ratings agency Standard Poor s has just downgraded the sovereign debt ratings of nine eurozone countries, including France.

The credit ratings agency Standard amp Poor s has just downgraded the sovereign debt ratings of nine eurozone countries, including France.

Meanwhile, governments were running large deficits a legacy of the economic downturn which renewed growth was supposed to shrink. In the eurozone, countries like Greece faced sovereign debt crises as bank bailouts turned private debt into public debt.

But the stimulus measures transformed a banking crisis into a fiscal and sovereign debt crisis. From 2010 onwards, governments started to raise taxes and cut spending in response to growing fears of sovereign default.

The international community has, so far, failed to develop effective and equitable arrangements for restructuring sovereign debt, despite the clearly dysfunctional and problematic consequences of past international public debt crises. This prevents timely debt workouts when needed, effectively impeding recovery.

True, the country s periodic debt crises are often the result of self destructive macroeconomic policies. But, this time, the default has been triggered by a significant shift in the international sovereign debt regime.

Regardless of how the current impasse is resolved, the ruling raises many questions for issuers and holders of sovereign debt. If creditors now believe that holding out makes it more likely that they will receive full value at a later date, restructuring sovereign debt and restoring a debtor economy s normal functioning will be more difficult.

Until the euro crisis, it was generally believed that problems servicing sovereign debt occurred only in emerging markets and the least developed countries. The US Supreme Court s decision on Argentina adds a new wrinkle, and may well further increase the risk attached to holding sovereign debt and this to the cost of issuing it.

This distinction between foreign and domestic debt is particularly important in the context of the euro crisis, because eurozone countries cannot devalue to increase exports if this is required to service foreign debt. And the evidence confirms that the euro crisis is not really about sovereign debt, but about foreign debt.

We welcome the commitment of the Paris Club to reduce substantially Iraq's sovereign debt and urge the other creditors to take similar decisions.

Europeans, too, have become dependent on low interest rates, with the European Central Bank as the key stabilizing force. Without the ECB s commitment, in place since 2012, to prevent sovereign debt yields from soaring, there would be a persistent risk to the eurozone and, indeed, to the entire edifice of the European Union of sovereign debt defaults.

Sovereign debt has been a major feature of the international financial system for centuries. Kings borrowed, often internationally, to finance wars and other expenditures.

We cannot foster sustainable growth or preempt a sovereign debt crisis in Europe (or anywhere else) by piling up more debt. European countries need to reduce their deficits in a growth friendly fashion, but reduce them they must.

Of course, I am confident that the eurozone s ongoing sovereign debt crisis will be overcome, and that a more integrated and effective Europe will emerge. But, to get to that improved Europe, not only must the sovereign debt crisis be resolved relations with three major countries to Europe s east Turkey, Russia, and Ukraine will need to be put on more secure footing.

Some believe that this vacuum is the primary difficulty with the international debt system. Ambitious proposals to redress it, such as a Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM) housed at the International Monetary Fund, have always run into political roadblocks.

But, beyond that, Europe s experience ought to spur a full rethink of the global system for administering sovereign bankruptcies. That could mean bringing back older IMF proposals for a sovereign bankruptcy mechanism, or finding ways to institutionalize the Fund s recent stance on Greek debt.

Clearly, environmental risks are potentially large enough to affect countries economies in ways that could influence their willingness or ability to repay sovereign debt. In addition, these risks vary widely across countries, including countries whose current credit ratings suggest similar levels of sovereign risk.

Sixth, rising government debt ratios will eventually lead to increases in real interest rates that may crowd out private spending and even lead to sovereign refinancing risk.

See IMF Reviewing the process for sovereign debt restructuring within the existing legal framework, Policy Development and Review, International Capital Markets, and Legal Departments, 1 August 2003.

29 See Krueger A. O. Sovereign Debt Restructuring and Dispute Resolution, speech by Anne Krueger, First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, 6 June 2002.

WASHINGTON, DC Sovereign debt has been back in the news recently, this time because of a United States Supreme Court ruling concerning Argentine debt. As a result of the ruling, a complicated issue is likely to become even more so.

In the eurozone, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, and Cyprus all had to restructure their sovereign debt to avoid outright default. Rising debt GDP ratios cast a pall over fiscal policy, and became the main justification for austerity policies that prolonged the slump.

The European Union s approach to bank regulation encouraged financial institutions to load up on government debt supposedly a risk free asset. Now, given the profound sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone periphery, government defaults threaten to take down the big banks.

Prior to the crisis, banks had often been net sellers of foreign government bonds, but they significantly increased their purchases during 2008 2009. With the onset of the European sovereign debt crisis in 2010, banks appetite for public debt fell again.

Interest rate spreads on Italian sovereign debt have widened, but not sharply. External investors may not be rushing for the exits, but they are not piling in, either.

NEW YORK Like individuals, corporations, and other private firms that rely on bankruptcy procedures to reduce an excessive debt burden, countries sometimes need orderly debt restructuring or reduction. But the ongoing legal saga of Argentina s fight with holdout creditors shows that the international system for orderly sovereign debt restructuring may be broken.

The interest rates on the euro denominated sovereign debt of the twelve euro zone governments are all very similar. So the market does not seem to care that countries have different potentials to generate exports to fund the financial flows needed for debt repayments, or different current and projected debt to GDP ratios.

In countries that cannot issue debt in their own currency (traditionally emerging market economies), or that issue debt in their own currency but cannot independently print money (as in the euro zone), unsustainable fiscal deficits often lead to a credit crisis, a sovereign default, or other coercive form of public debt restructuring.

If Europe could show in the worst possible scenario of sovereign default how such a process might operate, uncertainty would be reduced and markets would be reassured. And, in the longer term, we would have a viable international model of how to tackle severe sovereign debt problems.