Historical Research on International Lending and Debt

Bank lending to developing countries and possible solutions to international debt problems

International lending of last resort and moral hazard - Sovereign Debt conference paper - FRB Dallas

It is often argued that the provision of liquidity by the international institutions such as the IMF to countries experiencing balance of payment problems can have catalytic effects on the behavior of international financial markets, i.e., it can reduce the scale of liquidity runs by inducing investors to roll over their financial claims to the country. Critics point out that official lending a...

Debt Maturity and Relationship Lending: An Analysis of European SMEs

This paper examines the association between bank debt maturity and relationship lending using a unique survey sample of 3,366 SMEs from 19 European countries. The knowledge of how the institutional environment shapes relationship lending helps us to understand how current institutional changes, such as Basel II, might affect the SME-bank relationship and hence, SME access to financing. Our resu...

International Debt and Economic Instability

The debt experience of the 1920s and 1930s was one of pervasive default. Half the outstanding Latin American debt was completely in default by 1949, and nearly half was serviced on an adjusted basis, having been written down as to principal and interest. Only a tiny 1.9 percent continued to be serviced on the tenns origmally contracted. By comparison, today's debt performance is dramatically su...

Contingent Sovereign Debt Contracts:The Historical Perspective

Contingent sovereign debt is conceptually appealing. Economists have long argued that linking the obligation to pay to an indicator of ability to pay (such as GDP growth or export prices) could substantially reduce the risk of defaults, as well as smooth consumption (Kletzer, Newbery and Wright 1992; Borensztein and Mauro 2004; Borensztein et al. 2004). Actual examples of contingent bonds, howe...