Why read Rethinking Sovereign Debt?

Book cover of Rethinking Sovereign Debt: Politics, Reputation, and Legitimacy in Modern Finance

Book description

Conventional wisdom holds that all nations must repay debt. Regardless of the legitimacy of the regime that signs the contract, a country that fails to honor its loan obligations damages its reputation, inviting still greater problems down the road. Yet difficult dilemmas arise from this assumption. Should today's South Africa…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Rethinking Sovereign Debt as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Barry Herman

Author

Most debts embody a legal contract specifying how and when the borrowed funds will be repaid and any circumstances in which the obligation can be amended.

Non-payment of most loan contracts end up before a judge whose decisions on repayment are guided by a national bankruptcy law. Debts of sovereign states differ.

Insolvent governments negotiate partial or delayed repayment with their various creditors. The starting point is always that the contracts must be honored.

Professor Lienau argues that there are instances in legal theory and historically in practice in which governments did not and should not have had to repay…

From Barry's list on The best books on developing countries falling into and (not) getting out of sovereign debt crises.