IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/oxford/v29y2013i4p715-744.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sovereign debt and its restructuring framework in the eurozone

Author

Listed:
  • Ashoka Mody

Abstract

To compensate for the inflexibility due to fixed exchange rates, the eurozone needs flexibility through a system of orderly debt restructuring. With virtually no room for macroeconomic manoeuvring since the crisis onset, fiscal austerity has been the main instrument for achieving reduction of public debt levels; but because austerity also weakens growth, public debt ratios have barely budged. Austerity has also implied continued high private debt ratios, and these debt burdens have perpetuated economic stasis. Economic theory, history, and the recent experience all call for a principled debt restructuring mechanism as an integral element of the Eurozone design. Sovereign debt should be recognized as equity (a residual claim on the sovereign), operationalized by the automatic lowering the debt burden upon the breach of contractually specified thresholds. Making debt more equity-like is also the way forward for speedy private deleveraging. This debt–equity swap principle is a needed shock absorber for the future but will also serve as the principle to deal with the overhang of ‘legacy’ debt. Copyright 2013, Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Ashoka Mody, 2013. "Sovereign debt and its restructuring framework in the eurozone," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 29(4), pages 715-744, WINTER.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxford:v:29:y:2013:i:4:p:715-744
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oxrep/grt029
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Schumacher, Julian & Trebesch, Christoph & Enderlein, Henrik, 2021. "Sovereign defaults in court," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    2. Clemens Fuest & Friedrich Heinemann & Christoph Schröder, 2016. "A Viable Insolvency Procedure for Sovereigns in the Euro Area," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 301-317, March.
    3. Lorenzo Esposito & Giuseppe Mastromatteo, 2019. "Defaultnomics: Making Sense of the Barro-Ricardo Equivalence in a Financialized World," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_933, Levy Economics Institute.
    4. Ernesto Longobardi & Antonio Pedone, 2018. "On some recent proposals of public debt restructuring in the Eurozone," Chapters, in: Giuseppe Eusepi & Richard E. Wagner (ed.), Debt Default and Democracy, chapter 6, pages 84-123, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Consiglio, Andrea & Zenios, Stavros A., 2015. "The Case for Contingent Convertible Debt for Sovereignst," Working Papers 15-13, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    6. Nicolas Carnot & Stéphanie Pamies Sumner, 2017. "GDP-linked Bonds: Some Simulations on EU Countries," European Economy - Discussion Papers 073, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    7. María del Carmen Ramos-Herrera & Simón Sosvilla-Rivero, 2020. "Fiscal Sustainability in Aging Societies: Evidence from Euro Area Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-20, December.
    8. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Steinkamp, Sven & Westermann, Frank, 2020. "Capital flight to Germany: Two alternative measures," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    9. Dumitriu, Ramona & Stefanescu, Răzvan, 2020. "Iluzii financiare, Partea întâi [Financial Illusions, Part 1]," MPRA Paper 101201, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 17 Jun 2020.
    10. Marco Committeri & Pietro Tommasino, 2018. "Managing sovereign debt restructurings in the euro zone. A note on old and current debates," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 451, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    11. Gómez-Puig, Marta & Sosvilla-Rivero, Simón, 2017. "Heterogeneity in the debt-growth nexus: Evidence from EMU countries," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 470-486.
    12. Fuest, Clemens & Heinemann, Friedrich & Schröder, Christoph, 2014. "A viable insolvency procedure for sovereigns (VIPS) in the euro area," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-053, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    13. Consiglio Andrea & Zenios Stavros A., 2018. "Contingent Convertible Bonds for Sovereign Debt Risk Management," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-24, June.
    14. Julian Schumacher & Christoph Trebesch & Henrik Enderlein, 2015. "What Explains Sovereign Debt Litigation?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(3).
    15. Brooke, Martin & Pienkowski, Alex & Mendes, Rhys & Santor, Eric, 2013. "Financial Stability Paper No 27: Sovereign Default and State-Contingent Debt," Bank of England Financial Stability Papers 27, Bank of England.
    16. Trebesch, Christoph, 2015. "Kurzgutachten zu Staatsschuldenkrisen," Working Papers 06/2015, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:oup:oxford:v:29:y:2013:i:4:p:715-744. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/oxrep .

    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.