Author: Jerome E. Roos
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691184933
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 413
Book Description
How creditors came to wield unprecedented power over heavily indebted countries—and the dangers this poses to democracy The European debt crisis has rekindled long-standing debates about the power of finance and the fraught relationship between capitalism and democracy in a globalized world. Why Not Default? unravels a striking puzzle at the heart of these debates—why, despite frequent crises and the immense costs of repayment, do so many heavily indebted countries continue to service their international debts? In this compelling and incisive book, Jerome Roos provides a sweeping investigation of the political economy of sovereign debt and international crisis management. He takes readers from the rise of public borrowing in the Italian city-states to the gunboat diplomacy of the imperialist era and the wave of sovereign defaults during the Great Depression. He vividly describes the debt crises of developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s and sheds new light on the recent turmoil inside the Eurozone—including the dramatic capitulation of Greece’s short-lived anti-austerity government to its European creditors in 2015. Drawing on in-depth case studies of contemporary debt crises in Mexico, Argentina, and Greece, Why Not Default? paints a disconcerting picture of the ascendancy of global finance. This important book shows how the profound transformation of the capitalist world economy over the past four decades has endowed private and official creditors with unprecedented structural power over heavily indebted borrowers, enabling them to impose painful austerity measures and enforce uninterrupted debt service during times of crisis—with devastating social consequences and far-reaching implications for democracy.
Why Not Default?
Author: Jerome E. Roos
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691184933
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 413
Book Description
How creditors came to wield unprecedented power over heavily indebted countries—and the dangers this poses to democracy The European debt crisis has rekindled long-standing debates about the power of finance and the fraught relationship between capitalism and democracy in a globalized world. Why Not Default? unravels a striking puzzle at the heart of these debates—why, despite frequent crises and the immense costs of repayment, do so many heavily indebted countries continue to service their international debts? In this compelling and incisive book, Jerome Roos provides a sweeping investigation of the political economy of sovereign debt and international crisis management. He takes readers from the rise of public borrowing in the Italian city-states to the gunboat diplomacy of the imperialist era and the wave of sovereign defaults during the Great Depression. He vividly describes the debt crises of developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s and sheds new light on the recent turmoil inside the Eurozone—including the dramatic capitulation of Greece’s short-lived anti-austerity government to its European creditors in 2015. Drawing on in-depth case studies of contemporary debt crises in Mexico, Argentina, and Greece, Why Not Default? paints a disconcerting picture of the ascendancy of global finance. This important book shows how the profound transformation of the capitalist world economy over the past four decades has endowed private and official creditors with unprecedented structural power over heavily indebted borrowers, enabling them to impose painful austerity measures and enforce uninterrupted debt service during times of crisis—with devastating social consequences and far-reaching implications for democracy.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691184933
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 413
Book Description
How creditors came to wield unprecedented power over heavily indebted countries—and the dangers this poses to democracy The European debt crisis has rekindled long-standing debates about the power of finance and the fraught relationship between capitalism and democracy in a globalized world. Why Not Default? unravels a striking puzzle at the heart of these debates—why, despite frequent crises and the immense costs of repayment, do so many heavily indebted countries continue to service their international debts? In this compelling and incisive book, Jerome Roos provides a sweeping investigation of the political economy of sovereign debt and international crisis management. He takes readers from the rise of public borrowing in the Italian city-states to the gunboat diplomacy of the imperialist era and the wave of sovereign defaults during the Great Depression. He vividly describes the debt crises of developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s and sheds new light on the recent turmoil inside the Eurozone—including the dramatic capitulation of Greece’s short-lived anti-austerity government to its European creditors in 2015. Drawing on in-depth case studies of contemporary debt crises in Mexico, Argentina, and Greece, Why Not Default? paints a disconcerting picture of the ascendancy of global finance. This important book shows how the profound transformation of the capitalist world economy over the past four decades has endowed private and official creditors with unprecedented structural power over heavily indebted borrowers, enabling them to impose painful austerity measures and enforce uninterrupted debt service during times of crisis—with devastating social consequences and far-reaching implications for democracy.
Debt Default and Democracy
Author: Giuseppe Eusepi
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 178811793X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
The original chapters in this book connect the microeconomic and macroeconomic approaches to public debt. Through their thought-provoking views, leading scholars offer insights into the incentives that individuals and governments may have in resorting to public debt, thereby promoting a clearer understanding of its economic consequences.
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 178811793X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
The original chapters in this book connect the microeconomic and macroeconomic approaches to public debt. Through their thought-provoking views, leading scholars offer insights into the incentives that individuals and governments may have in resorting to public debt, thereby promoting a clearer understanding of its economic consequences.
Democracy and Financial Order: Legal Perspectives
Author: Matthias Goldmann
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783662585603
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
This book discusses the relationship between democracy and the financial order from various legal perspectives. Each of the nine contributions adopts a unique perspective on the legal and political challenges brought to the fore by the Global Financial Crisis. This crisis and the ensuing sovereign debt crisis in Europe are only the latest in a long series of financial crises around the globe in recent decades. By their very existence, but also as a result of the political turmoil they have created, these financial crises testify to the well-known tensions between democracy and a market-based economic and financial order. However, what is missing in this debate is an analysis of the role of law for reconciling democracy with a market-based financial order. To fill this lacuna, the book focuses on the controversy surrounding the concept of law, thereby adding another variable to the debate on the relation between democracy and capitalism. Each chapter addresses the concept of law from a particular theoretical angle, be it a full-grown legal theory or an approach in political economy that has a particular view of the law.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783662585603
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
This book discusses the relationship between democracy and the financial order from various legal perspectives. Each of the nine contributions adopts a unique perspective on the legal and political challenges brought to the fore by the Global Financial Crisis. This crisis and the ensuing sovereign debt crisis in Europe are only the latest in a long series of financial crises around the globe in recent decades. By their very existence, but also as a result of the political turmoil they have created, these financial crises testify to the well-known tensions between democracy and a market-based economic and financial order. However, what is missing in this debate is an analysis of the role of law for reconciling democracy with a market-based financial order. To fill this lacuna, the book focuses on the controversy surrounding the concept of law, thereby adding another variable to the debate on the relation between democracy and capitalism. Each chapter addresses the concept of law from a particular theoretical angle, be it a full-grown legal theory or an approach in political economy that has a particular view of the law.
The Political Economy of Sovereign Default
Author: Sebastian Hohmann
Publisher: Graduate Institute Publications
ISBN: 2940503087
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
What do self-interested governments’ needs to maintain loyal groups of supporters imply for sovereign incentives to repay debt? Many sovereign defaults have occurred at relatively low levels of debt, while some highly indebted nations continue to honour their obligations. This poses a problem for traditional models of sovereign debt, which rely on the threat of economic sanctions to explain why and when a representative agent seeking to maximise social welfare would choose debt-repayment. The political-economy model of sovereign default developed in this ePaper shows that those governments that depend on small groups of loyalists drawn from large populations are more likely to default on sovereign debt than those governments dependent on large groups of supporters. These findings contribute to a growing body of literature on the importance of institutions in sovereign debt and default.
Publisher: Graduate Institute Publications
ISBN: 2940503087
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
What do self-interested governments’ needs to maintain loyal groups of supporters imply for sovereign incentives to repay debt? Many sovereign defaults have occurred at relatively low levels of debt, while some highly indebted nations continue to honour their obligations. This poses a problem for traditional models of sovereign debt, which rely on the threat of economic sanctions to explain why and when a representative agent seeking to maximise social welfare would choose debt-repayment. The political-economy model of sovereign default developed in this ePaper shows that those governments that depend on small groups of loyalists drawn from large populations are more likely to default on sovereign debt than those governments dependent on large groups of supporters. These findings contribute to a growing body of literature on the importance of institutions in sovereign debt and default.
Democracy, Dictatorship, and Default
Author: Cameron Ballard-Rosa
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108875319
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 211
Book Description
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that, in the coming years, more than fifty countries are at risk of default. Yet we understand little about the political determinants of this decision to renege on promises to international creditors. This book develops and tests a unified theory of how domestic politics explains sovereign default across dictatorships and democracies. Professor Ballard-Rosa argues that both democratic and autocratic governments will choose to default when it is necessary for political survival; however, regime type has a significant impact on what specific kinds of threats leaders face. While dictatorships are concerned with avoiding urban riots, democratic governments are concerned with losing elections, in particular the support of rural voting blocs. Using cross-national data and historical case studies, Ballard-Rosa shows that leaders under each regime type are more likely to default when doing so allows them to keep funding costly policies supporting critical bases of support.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108875319
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 211
Book Description
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that, in the coming years, more than fifty countries are at risk of default. Yet we understand little about the political determinants of this decision to renege on promises to international creditors. This book develops and tests a unified theory of how domestic politics explains sovereign default across dictatorships and democracies. Professor Ballard-Rosa argues that both democratic and autocratic governments will choose to default when it is necessary for political survival; however, regime type has a significant impact on what specific kinds of threats leaders face. While dictatorships are concerned with avoiding urban riots, democratic governments are concerned with losing elections, in particular the support of rural voting blocs. Using cross-national data and historical case studies, Ballard-Rosa shows that leaders under each regime type are more likely to default when doing so allows them to keep funding costly policies supporting critical bases of support.
The Political Economy of Public Debt
Author: Richard M. Salsman
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1785363387
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
How have the most influential political economists of the past three centuries theorized about sovereign borrowing and shaped its now widespread use? That important question receives a comprehensive answer in this original work, featuring careful textual analysis and illuminating exhibits of public debt empirics since 1700. Beyond its value as a definitive, authoritative history of thought on public debt, this book rehabilitates and reintroduces a realist perspective into a contemporary debate now heavily dominated by pessimists and optimists alike.
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1785363387
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
How have the most influential political economists of the past three centuries theorized about sovereign borrowing and shaped its now widespread use? That important question receives a comprehensive answer in this original work, featuring careful textual analysis and illuminating exhibits of public debt empirics since 1700. Beyond its value as a definitive, authoritative history of thought on public debt, this book rehabilitates and reintroduces a realist perspective into a contemporary debate now heavily dominated by pessimists and optimists alike.
The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy
Author: Richard A. Posner
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674062191
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 409
Book Description
Following up on his timely and well-received book, A Failure of Capitalism, Richard Posner steps back to take a longer view of the continuing crisis of democratic capitalism as the American and world economies crawl gradually back from the depths to which they had fallen in the autumn of 2008 and the winter of 2009. By means of a lucid narrative of the crisis and a series of analytical chapters pinpointing critical issues of economic collapse and gradual recovery, Posner helps non-technical readers understand business-cycle and financial economics, and financial and governmental institutions, practices, and transactions, while maintaining a neutrality impossible for persons professionally committed to one theory or another. He calls for fresh thinking about the business cycle that would build on the original ideas of Keynes. Central to these ideas is that of uncertainty as opposed to risk. Risk can be quantified and measured. Uncertainty cannot, and in this lies the inherent instability of a capitalist economy. As we emerge from the financial earthquake, a deficit aftershock rumbles. It is in reference to that potential aftershock, as well as to the government's stumbling efforts at financial regulatory reform, that Posner raises the question of the adequacy of our democratic institutions to the economic challenges heightened by the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis and the government's energetic response to it have enormously increased the national debt at the same time that structural defects in the American political system may make it impossible to pay down the debt by any means other than inflation or devaluation.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674062191
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 409
Book Description
Following up on his timely and well-received book, A Failure of Capitalism, Richard Posner steps back to take a longer view of the continuing crisis of democratic capitalism as the American and world economies crawl gradually back from the depths to which they had fallen in the autumn of 2008 and the winter of 2009. By means of a lucid narrative of the crisis and a series of analytical chapters pinpointing critical issues of economic collapse and gradual recovery, Posner helps non-technical readers understand business-cycle and financial economics, and financial and governmental institutions, practices, and transactions, while maintaining a neutrality impossible for persons professionally committed to one theory or another. He calls for fresh thinking about the business cycle that would build on the original ideas of Keynes. Central to these ideas is that of uncertainty as opposed to risk. Risk can be quantified and measured. Uncertainty cannot, and in this lies the inherent instability of a capitalist economy. As we emerge from the financial earthquake, a deficit aftershock rumbles. It is in reference to that potential aftershock, as well as to the government's stumbling efforts at financial regulatory reform, that Posner raises the question of the adequacy of our democratic institutions to the economic challenges heightened by the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis and the government's energetic response to it have enormously increased the national debt at the same time that structural defects in the American political system may make it impossible to pay down the debt by any means other than inflation or devaluation.
American Default
Author: Sebastian Edwards
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691196044
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
The untold story of how FDR did the unthinkable to save the American economy.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691196044
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
The untold story of how FDR did the unthinkable to save the American economy.
Democracy and Political Ignorance
Author: Ilya Somin
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804789312
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
One of the biggest problems with modern democracy is that most of the public is usually ignorant of politics and government. Often, many people understand that their votes are unlikely to change the outcome of an election and don't see the point in learning much about politics. This may be rational, but it creates a nation of people with little political knowledge and little ability to objectively evaluate what they do know. In Democracy and Political Ignorance, Ilya Somin mines the depths of ignorance in America and reveals the extent to which it is a major problem for democracy. Somin weighs various options for solving this problem, arguing that political ignorance is best mitigated and its effects lessened by decentralizing and limiting government. Somin provocatively argues that people make better decisions when they choose what to purchase in the market or which state or local government to live under, than when they vote at the ballot box, because they have stronger incentives to acquire relevant information and to use it wisely.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804789312
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
One of the biggest problems with modern democracy is that most of the public is usually ignorant of politics and government. Often, many people understand that their votes are unlikely to change the outcome of an election and don't see the point in learning much about politics. This may be rational, but it creates a nation of people with little political knowledge and little ability to objectively evaluate what they do know. In Democracy and Political Ignorance, Ilya Somin mines the depths of ignorance in America and reveals the extent to which it is a major problem for democracy. Somin weighs various options for solving this problem, arguing that political ignorance is best mitigated and its effects lessened by decentralizing and limiting government. Somin provocatively argues that people make better decisions when they choose what to purchase in the market or which state or local government to live under, than when they vote at the ballot box, because they have stronger incentives to acquire relevant information and to use it wisely.
Rethinking Sovereign Debt
Author: Odette Lienau
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674726405
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 342
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 obligations damages its reputation. Yet should today's South Africa be responsible for apartheid-era debt? Is it reasonable to tether postwar Iraq with Saddam Hussein's excesses? Rethinking Sovereign Debt is a probing analysis of how sovereign debt continuity--the rule that nations should repay loans even after a major regime change, or else expect consequences--became dominant. Odette Lienau contends that the practice is not essential for functioning capital markets, and demonstrates its reliance on absolutist ideas that have come under fire over the last century. Lienau traces debt continuity from World War I to the present, emphasizing the role of government officials, the World Bank, and private markets in shaping our existing framework. Challenging previous accounts, she argues that Soviet Russia's repudiation of Tsarist debt and Great Britain's 1923 arbitration with Costa Rica hint at the feasibility of selective debt cancellation. Rethinking Sovereign Debt calls on scholars and policymakers to recognize political choice and historical precedent in sovereign debt and reputation, in order to move beyond an impasse when a government is overthrown.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674726405
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 342
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 obligations damages its reputation. Yet should today's South Africa be responsible for apartheid-era debt? Is it reasonable to tether postwar Iraq with Saddam Hussein's excesses? Rethinking Sovereign Debt is a probing analysis of how sovereign debt continuity--the rule that nations should repay loans even after a major regime change, or else expect consequences--became dominant. Odette Lienau contends that the practice is not essential for functioning capital markets, and demonstrates its reliance on absolutist ideas that have come under fire over the last century. Lienau traces debt continuity from World War I to the present, emphasizing the role of government officials, the World Bank, and private markets in shaping our existing framework. Challenging previous accounts, she argues that Soviet Russia's repudiation of Tsarist debt and Great Britain's 1923 arbitration with Costa Rica hint at the feasibility of selective debt cancellation. Rethinking Sovereign Debt calls on scholars and policymakers to recognize political choice and historical precedent in sovereign debt and reputation, in order to move beyond an impasse when a government is overthrown.