IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cte/werepe/2906.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evaluating debt repurchases: what are the alternative to investment?

Author

Listed:
  • Costa-Cabral, Célia

Abstract

In this paper a general model of debt repurchases is built which reconciles most of the points raised in the literature on debt buybacks. It is shown that results previously found in the literature can be obtained from this general model and are strongly dependant on assumptions made on its parameters. The condition that determines whether or not buybacks are an attractive solution from the point of the debtor nations is derived. Additionally it is shown that if there are other assets safer than investment, a debt buyback will always lead to an increase in investment and a reduction in the holdings of such other assets. This result holds independently of the source of the resources used for the buyback, unlike previous suggestions. With a buyback out of current resources, optimal reserves levels fall by more than what is used for the buyback, releasing extra resources for investment purposes, while current consumption does not fall. (JEL F34)

Suggested Citation

  • Costa-Cabral, Célia, 1993. "Evaluating debt repurchases: what are the alternative to investment?," UC3M Working papers. Economics 2906, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    • Handle: RePEc:cte:werepe:2906
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://e-archivo.uc3m.es/rest/api/core/bitstreams/367573ca-c03a-4319-a8bc-57c9bb990fb5/content
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul R. Krugman, 1988. "Market-Based Debt-Reduction Schemes," NBER Working Papers 2587, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Jeremy Bulow & Kenneth Rogoff, 1991. "Sovereign Debt Repurchases: No Cure for Overhang," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1219-1235.
    3. Schwartz, Eduardo S & Zurita, Salvador, 1992. "Sovereign Debt: Optimal Contract, Underinvestment, and Forgiveness," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(3), pages 981-1004, July.
    4. Bulow, Jeremy & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1989. "Sovereign Debt: Is to Forgive to Forget?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 43-50, March.
    5. Helpman, Elhanan, 1989. "The Simple Analytics of Debt-Equity Swaps," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 440-451, June.
    6. Goldberg, Linda & Spiegel, Mark M., 1992. "Debt write-downs and debt--equity swaps in a two-sector model," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3-4), pages 267-283, November.
    7. Froot, Kenneth A, 1989. "Buybacks, Exit Bonds, and the Optimality of Debt and Liquidity Relief," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 30(1), pages 49-70, February.
    8. Jonathan Eaton & Mark Gersovitz & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1991. "The Pure Theory of Country Risk," NBER Chapters, in: International Volatility and Economic Growth: The First Ten Years of The International Seminar on Macroeconomics, pages 391-435, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Michael P. Dooley, 1988. "Buy-Backs and Market Valuation of External Debt," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 35(2), pages 215-229, June.
    10. Sachs, J.D., 1989. "New Approaches To The Latin American Debt Crisis," Princeton Studies in International Economics 174, International Economics Section, Departement of Economics Princeton University,.
    11. Van Wijnbergen, Sweder, 1990. "Cash/debt buy-backs and the insurance value of reserves," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1-2), pages 123-131, August.
    12. Jeremy Bulow & Kenneth Rogoff, 1988. "The Buyback Boondoggle," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(2), pages 675-704.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Eaton, Jonathan & Fernandez, Raquel, 1995. "Sovereign debt," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 3, pages 2031-2077, Elsevier.

    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. Fernando Broner & Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2010. "Sovereign Risk and Secondary Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1523-1555, September.
    2. Schioppa, Claudio A. & Papadia, Andrea, 2015. "Foreign Debt and Secondary Markets: The Case of Interwar Germany," MPRA Paper 102863, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2016.
    3. Andrea Papadia & Claudio A. Schioppa, 2024. "Foreign Debt, Capital Controls, and Secondary Markets: Theory and Evidence from Nazi Germany," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(6), pages 2074-2112.
    4. Gooptu, Sudarshan, 1996. "Emerging policy issues in development finance," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(Supplemen), pages 85-100.
    5. Jonathan P. Thomas, 2001. "Default Costs, Willingness to Pay and Sovereign Debt Buybacks," International Finance 0103002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Elhanan Helpman, 1989. "Voluntary Debt Reduction: Incentives and Welfare," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 36(3), pages 580-611, September.
    7. Goopu, Sudarshan, 1996. "The analysis of emerging policy issues in development finance," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1589, The World Bank.
    8. Bulow, Jeremy & Rogoff, Kenneth & Ning S. Zhu & DEC & a descri & Buyback arrangements, 1994. "Estimating the efficiency gains of debt restructuring," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1317, The World Bank.
    9. Ms. Magdalena Polan & Parmeshwar Ramlogan & Mr. Carlos I. Medeiros, 2007. "A Primer on Sovereign Debt Buybacks and Swaps," IMF Working Papers 2007/058, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Peter Rowland, 2005. "Buyback of Colombian Sovereign Debt," Borradores de Economia 331, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    11. Goldberg, Linda & Spiegel, Mark M., 1992. "Debt write-downs and debt--equity swaps in a two-sector model," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3-4), pages 267-283, November.
    12. Kaushik Basu, 1989. "The International Debt Problem: Could Someone Please Explain It to Me?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-1989-078, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Oladi, Reza, 2003. "International involuntary lending and contingent default threat," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 237-245.
    14. Ethan Ilzetzki & Heidi Christina Thysen, 2024. "Fiscal Rules and Market Discipline," Discussion Papers 2409, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    15. Cohen, Daniel & Verdier, Thierry, 1995. "'Secret' buy-backs of LDC debt," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 317-334, November.
    16. Jeremy Bulow & Kenneth Rogoff, 1991. "Sovereign Debt Repurchases: No Cure for Overhang," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1219-1235.
    17. Aasim Mairaj Husain, 1988. "Forgiveness, Buybacks, and Exit Bonds: An Analysis of Alternate Debt Relief Strategiest," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 27(4), pages 819-828.
    18. Silvia Marchesi, 2006. "Buybacks of domestic debt in public debt management," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(5), pages 379-400.
    19. Li, Yuan & Yang, Jinqiang & Zhao, Siqi, 2022. "Present-biased government and sovereign debt dynamics," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    20. Balazs Szentes & Natalia Kovrijnykh, 2005. "A Theory of Debt Overhang and Buyback," 2005 Meeting Papers 447, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Debt Overhang;

    JEL classification:

    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems

    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:cte:werepe:2906. 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: Ana Poveda (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.eco.uc3m.es/ .

    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.