Restructuring Sovereign Debt: Lessons from Recent History
Udaibir S. Das
Michael G. Papaioannou
Christoph Trebesch
August 2012
This paper summarizes lessons learned from the recent history of
sovereign debt restructurings in emerging markets and developing
countries. Our main contribution is to present a set of stylized facts on the
outcome and process of debt restructurings since 1998, including on the
size of haircuts, creditor participation, and legal issues such as creditor
litigation and collective action clauses. In addition, the paper provides an
overview of basic concepts, on the frequency and type of debt
restructurings in the last decades and explains the main procedural steps in
implementing a debt exchange. We conclude by summarizing the
implications of defaults and restructurings for financial intermediation and
economic activity.
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