IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/aelcon/v6y2016i3p219-241n3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Role for Legitimacy in Sovereign Debt: A Review Essay on Odette Lienau, Rethinking Sovereign Debt, 2014

Author

Listed:
  • Herman Barry

    (The New School, Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy, New York, NY, USA)

Abstract

The book under review seems especially relevant to the intergovernmental policy dialogues that have recently focused on how creditors and a borrowing government should vet sovereign borrowing, and how to hold the lender and borrower accountable for their decisions. The book seeks to specify under what circumstances, if any, there are limits to the legal obligation to repay a sovereign loan. While repayment is always required except in cases of sovereign insolvency when it is just not possible, there have been exceptions to absolute repayment obligation in practice and in legal theory. This review builds on the author’s analysis of determinants of illegitimacy (which would remove the obligation to repay) in order to examine why governments in fact repay their loans, why the loss of access to credit makes repudiation of odious loans rare, and how if enforcing the obligation to repay were restricted to “responsible” lending and borrowing under internationally agreed terms, it could advance socially and environmentally sustainable development, while maintaining normal financial market activity of sovereigns. Finally, complementing a loan-by-loan approach, this paper calls for an internationally concerted process for more effectively and fairly resolving sovereign insolvencies.

Suggested Citation

  • Herman Barry, 2016. "A Role for Legitimacy in Sovereign Debt: A Review Essay on Odette Lienau, Rethinking Sovereign Debt, 2014," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 6(3), pages 219-241, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:aelcon:v:6:y:2016:i:3:p:219-241:n:3
    DOI: 10.1515/ael-2015-0017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/ael-2015-0017
    Download Restriction: Download restriction for institutions: For access to full text, subscription to the journal is required. Individual readers who register with De Gruyter Online get free access.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/ael-2015-0017?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ugo Panizza & Federico Sturzenegger & Jeromin Zettelmeyer, 2009. "The Economics and Law of Sovereign Debt and Default," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(3), pages 651-698, September.
    2. Herman, Barry & Ocampo, Jose Antonio & Spiegel, Shari (ed.), 2010. "Overcoming Developing Country Debt Crises," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199578795, Decembrie.
    3. Porzecanski, Arturo C., 2010. "When Bad Things Happen to Good Sovereign Debt Contracts: The Case of Ecuador," MPRA Paper 20857, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Yulia Sinyagina-Woodruff, 2003. "Russia, Sovereign Default, Reputation and Access to Capital Markets," Europe-Asia Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(4), pages 521-551.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Friedrich Heinemann, 2021. "The political economy of euro area sovereign debt restructuring," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 502-522, December.
    2. José Antonio Ocampo, 2017. "Resetting the International Monetary (Non)System," Books, Red Investigadores de Economía, number 2017-11, May.
    3. Horn, Fabian, 2015. "Quantifying the costs of sovereign defaults using odious debt cases as a quasi-natural experiment," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113125, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Cornand, Camille & Gandré, Pauline & Gimet, Céline, 2016. "Increase in home bias in the Eurozone debt crisis: The role of domestic shocks," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 445-469.
    5. Haichao Fan & Xiang Gao, 2017. "Domestic Creditor Rights and External Private Debt," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(606), pages 2410-2440, November.
    6. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2019_003 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Falko Juessen & Andreas Schabert, 2013. "Fiscal Policy, Sovereign Default, and Bailouts," Working Paper Series in Economics 67, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    8. Reinhard Neck & Dmitri Blueschke, 2014. "“Haircuts” for the EMU periphery: virtue or vice?," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 153-175, May.
    9. Stijn Claessens & M. Ayhan Kose, 2013. "Financial Crises: Explanations, Types and Implications," CAMA Working Papers 2013-06, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    10. Schumacher, Julian & Trebesch, Christoph & Enderlein, Henrik, 2021. "Sovereign defaults in court," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    11. Marc Flandreau, 2013. "Sovereign states, bondholders committees, and the London Stock Exchange in the nineteenth century (1827–68): new facts and old fictions," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 29(4), pages 668-696, WINTER.
    12. Guimarães, Bernardo de Vasconcellos & Ladeira, Carlos Eduardo de Almeida, 2015. "The determinants of IMF fiscal conditionalities: economics or politics?," Textos para discussão 391, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    13. Michael Tomz & Mark L.J. Wright, 2013. "Empirical Research on Sovereign Debt and Default," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 247-272, May.
    14. D'Maris Coffman & Judy Z. Stephenson & Nathan Sussman, 2022. "Financing the rebuilding of the City of London after the Great Fire of 1666," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1120-1150, November.
    15. Ugo PANIZZA, 2015. "Debt Sustainability in Low-Income Countries - The Grants versus Loans Debate in a World without Crystal Balls," Working Papers P120, FERDI.
    16. Furceri, Davide & Zdzienicka, Aleksandra, 2012. "How costly are debt crises?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 726-742.
    17. repec:ces:ifodic:v:11:y:2013:i:3:p:19099069 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Christoph Trebesch & Mr. Michael G. Papaioannou & Mr. Udaibir S Das, 2012. "Sovereign Debt Restructurings 1950-2010: Literature Survey, Data, and Stylized Facts," IMF Working Papers 2012/203, International Monetary Fund.
    19. Silvia Marchesi & Tania Masi, 2019. "Sovereign risk after sovereign restructuring. Private and official default," Working Papers 423, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2019.
    20. Peter Bofinger & Stefan Ried, 2010. "A new framework for fiscal policy consolidation in Europe," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 45(4), pages 203-211, July.
    21. Takefumi Yamazaki, 2018. "Accuracy and speed of the solution methods for sovereign default models: The stable performance of the Tauchen method and cubic spline interpolation," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 14(4), pages 641-662, July.
    22. Eduardo Borensztein & Ugo Panizza, 2009. "The Costs of Sovereign Default," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 56(4), pages 683-741, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:aelcon:v:6:y:2016:i:3:p:219-241:n:3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.