[go: up one dir, main page]

IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_5319.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Explains Sovereign Debt Litigation?

Author

Listed:
  • Julian Schumacher
  • Christoph Trebesch
  • Henrik Enderlein
Abstract
We study the occurrence of holdout litigation in the context of sovereign defaults. The number of creditor lawsuits against foreign governments has strongly increased over the past decades, but there is a large variation across crisis events. Why are some defaults followed by a “run to the courthouse” and others not? What explains the general increase in lawsuits? We address these questions based on an economic model of litigation and a new dataset capturing the near-universe of cases filed against defaulting sovereigns. We find that creditors are more likely to litigate in large debt restructurings, when governments impose high losses (“haircuts”), and when the defaulting country is more vulnerable to litigation (open economies and those with a low legal capacity). We conclude that sovereign debt lawsuits can be predicted reasonably well with a simple framework from the law and economics literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Julian Schumacher & Christoph Trebesch & Henrik Enderlein, 2015. "What Explains Sovereign Debt Litigation?," CESifo Working Paper Series 5319, CESifo.
  • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5319
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp5319.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chad P. Bown, 2005. "Trade Remedies and World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement: Why Are So Few Challenged?," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(2), pages 515-555, June.
    2. Unknown, 1962. "Economic Development And Aid," Increasing Understanding of Public Problems and Policies:1962 17983, Farm Foundation.
    3. Marcus Miller & Dania Thomas, 2007. "Sovereign Debt Restructuring: The Judge, the Vultures and Creditor Rights," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(10), pages 1491-1509, October.
    4. Gai, Prasanna & Hayes, Simon & Shin, Hyun Song, 2004. "Crisis costs and debtor discipline: the efficacy of public policy in sovereign debt crises," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 245-262, March.
    5. Mostafa Beshkar, 2014. "Arbitration and Renegotiation in Trade Agreements," Caepr Working Papers 2014-004, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Economics Department, Indiana University Bloomington.
    6. Marchesi, Silvia, 2003. "Adoption of an IMF programme and debt rescheduling. An empirical analysis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 403-423, April.
    7. Edward L. Glaeser & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "Legal Origins," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1193-1229.
    8. Bulow, Jeremy & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1989. "A Constant Recontracting Model of Sovereign Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 155-178, February.
    9. Benjamin Hébert & Jesse Schreger, 2017. "The Costs of Sovereign Default: Evidence from Argentina," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(10), pages 3119-3145, October.
    10. Kenneth Rogoff & Jeromin Zettelmeyer, 2002. "Bankruptcy Procedures for Sovereigns: A History of Ideas, 1976-2001," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 49(3), pages 1-8.
    11. Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor, 2012. "Credit Booms Gone Bust: Monetary Policy, Leverage Cycles, and Financial Crises, 1870-2008," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 1029-1061, April.
    12. Ran Bi & Marcos Chamon & Jeromin Zettelmeyer, 2016. "The Problem that Wasn’t: Coordination Failures in Sovereign Debt Restructurings," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 64(3), pages 471-501, August.
    13. Andrei Shleifer, 2003. "Will the Sovereign Debt Market Survive?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 85-90, May.
    14. Weinschelbaum, Federico & Wynne, Jose, 2005. "Renegotiation, collective action clauses and sovereign debt markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 47-72, September.
    15. Miller, Marcus & Zhang, Lei, 2000. "Sovereign Liquidity Crises: The Strategic Case for a Payments Standstill," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(460), pages 335-362, January.
    16. repec:tep:teppwp:wp1215 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Enrique G. Mendoza & Vivian Z. Yue, 2012. "A General Equilibrium Model of Sovereign Default and Business Cycles," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(2), pages 889-946.
    18. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), 2007. "Handbook of Law and Economics," Handbook of Law and Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    19. Jürgen von Hagen & Jean Pisani-Ferry & André Sapir & Francois Gianviti & Anne O. Krueger, . "A European mechanism for sovereign debt crisis resolution- a proposal," Blueprints, Bruegel, number 446.
    20. Jean Lanjouw & Josh Lerner, 1998. "The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: A Survey of the Empirical Literature," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 49-50, pages 223-246.
    21. Tamon Asonuma & Christoph Trebesch, 2016. "Sovereign Debt Restructurings: Preemptive Or Post-Default," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 175-214, February.
    22. Calvo, Guillermo A, 1988. "Servicing the Public Debt: The Role of Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 647-661, September.
    23. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    24. Patrick Bolton & Olivier Jeanne, 2007. "Structuring and Restructuring Sovereign Debt: The Role of a Bankruptcy Regime," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 901-924, December.
    25. Haldane, Andrew G. & Penalver, Adrian & Saporta, Victoria & Shin, Hyun Song, 2005. "Analytics of sovereign debt restructuring," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 315-333, March.
    26. Giovanni Maggi & Robert W. Staiger, 2011. "The Role of Dispute Settlement Procedures in International Trade Agreements," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 475-515.
    27. Ghosal, Sayantan & Thampanishvong, Kannika, 2013. "Does strengthening Collective Action Clauses (CACs) help?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 68-78.
    28. Greene, William, 2010. "Testing hypotheses about interaction terms in nonlinear models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 291-296, May.
    29. Sturzenegger, Federico & Zettelmeyer, Jeromin, 2008. "Haircuts: Estimating investor losses in sovereign debt restructurings, 1998-2005," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 780-805, September.
    30. Cameron, A Colin & Trivedi, Pravin K, 1986. "Econometric Models Based on Count Data: Comparisons and Applications of Some Estimators and Tests," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 1(1), pages 29-53, January.
    31. Dooley, Michael P., 2000. "International financial architecture and strategic default: can financial crises be less painful?," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 361-377, December.
    32. International Monetary Fund, 2010. "A Historical Public Debt Database," IMF Working Papers 2010/245, International Monetary Fund.
    33. Roubini, Nouriel & Brad Setser, 2004. "Bailouts or Bail-ins? Responding to Financial Crises in Emerging Economies," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 378, April.
    34. Rose, Andrew K., 2005. "One reason countries pay their debts: renegotiation and international trade," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 189-206, June.
    35. Sayantan Ghosal & Marcus Miller, 2003. "Co-ordination Failure, Moral Hazard and Sovereign Bankruptcy Procedures," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(487), pages 276-304, April.
    36. Aitor Erce, 2013. "Sovereign debt restructurings and the IMF: implications for future official interventions," Globalization Institute Working Papers 143, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    37. William M. Landes, 1974. "An Economic Analysis of the Courts," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 164-214, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. George L. Priest & Benjamin Klein, 1984. "The Selection of Disputes for Litigation," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(1), pages 1-56, January.
    39. Lane, Philip R. & Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, 2007. "The external wealth of nations mark II: Revised and extended estimates of foreign assets and liabilities, 1970-2004," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 223-250, November.
    40. Juan J. Cruces & Christoph Trebesch, 2013. "Sovereign Defaults: The Price of Haircuts," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 85-117, July.
    41. Rohan Pitchford & Mark L. J. Wright, 2012. "Holdouts in Sovereign Debt Restructuring: A Theory of Negotiation in a Weak Contractual Environment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 812-837.
    42. Sawada, Yasuyuki, 2001. "Secondary market efficiency for LDC bank loans and international private lending, 1985-1993," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 549-562, August.
    43. Mr. Patrick Bolton, 2003. "Toward a Statutory Approach to Sovereign Debt Restructuring: Lessons From Corporate Bankruptcy Practice Around the World," IMF Working Papers 2003/013, International Monetary Fund.
    44. Earl L. Grinols & Roberto Perrelli, 2006. "The WTO Impact on International Trade Disputes: An Event History Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 613-624, November.
    45. Michael Bradley & James D. Cox & Mitu Gulati, 2010. "The Market Reaction to Legal Shocks and Their Antidotes: Lessons from the Sovereign Debt Market," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(1), pages 289-324, January.
    46. Zettelmeyer, Jeromin & Gulati, Mitu, 2012. "Making a Voluntary Greek Debt Exchange Work," CEPR Discussion Papers 8754, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    47. Chad P. Bown, 2004. "On the Economic Success of GATT/WTO Dispute Settlement," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(3), pages 811-823, August.
    48. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2010. "The worldwide governance indicators : methodology and analytical issues," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5430, The World Bank.
    49. Cooter, Robert D & Rubinfeld, Daniel L, 1989. "Economic Analysis of Legal Disputes and Their Resolution," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 27(3), pages 1067-1097, September.
    50. Unknown, 1962. "Economic Growth Through Regional Associations," Increasing Understanding of Public Problems and Policies:1962 17970, Farm Foundation.
    51. Patrick Bolton & Olivier Jeanne, 2009. "Structuring and Restructuring Sovereign Debt: The Role of Seniority -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(3), pages 879-902.
    52. Josh Lerner, 2010. "The Litigation of Financial Innovations," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(4), pages 807-831.
    53. Lane, Philip & Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, "undated". "External Wealth of Nations," Instructional Stata datasets for econometrics extwealth, Boston College Department of Economics.
    54. Lanau, Sergi, 2011. "The contractual approach to sovereign debt restructuring," Bank of England working papers 409, Bank of England.
    55. 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.
    56. Ashoka Mody, 2013. "Sovereign debt and its restructuring framework in the euro area," Working Papers 788, Bruegel.
    57. Christoph Trebesch & Mr. Michael G. Papaioannou & Mr. Udaibir S Das, 2012. "Sovereign Debt Restructurings 1950-2010: Literature Survey, Data, and Stylized Facts," IMF Working Papers 2012/203, International Monetary Fund.
    58. Engelen, Christian & Lambsdorff, Johann Graf, 2009. "Hares and stags in Argentinean debt restructuring," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 141-148, June.
    59. Mr. Jeromin Zettelmeyer & Mr. Federico Sturzenegger, 2005. "Haircuts: Estimating Investor Losses in Sovereign Debt Restructurings, 1998-2005," IMF Working Papers 2005/137, International Monetary Fund.
    60. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), 2007. "Handbook of Law and Economics," Handbook of Law and Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    61. Mr. Manmohan Singh, 2003. "Recovery Rates From Distressed Debt: Empirical Evidence From Chapter 11 Filings, International Litigation, and Recent Sovereign Debt Restructurings," IMF Working Papers 2003/161, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Elard, Ilaf, 2020. "Three-player sovereign debt negotiations," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 217-240.
    2. Schumacher, Julian & Trebesch, Christoph & Enderlein, Henrik, 2021. "Sovereign defaults in court," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    3. Chuck Fang & Julian Schumacher & Christoph Trebesch, 2021. "Restructuring Sovereign Bonds: Holdouts, Haircuts and the Effectiveness of CACs," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 69(1), pages 155-196, March.
    4. 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.
    5. Kartik Anand & Prasanna Gai, 2019. "Pre-emptive sovereign debt restructuring and holdout litigation," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(2), pages 364-381.
    6. Mitchener, Kris & Trebesch, Christoph, 2021. "Sovereign Debt in the 21st Century: Looking Backward, Looking Forward," CEPR Discussion Papers 15935, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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. Schumacher, Julian & Trebesch, Christoph & Enderlein, Henrik, 2021. "Sovereign defaults in court," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    2. Chamon, Marcos & Schumacher, Julian & Trebesch, Christoph, 2018. "Foreign-Law Bonds: Can They Reduce Sovereign Borrowing Costs?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 114, pages 164-179.
    3. Christoph Trebesch & Mr. Michael G. Papaioannou & Mr. Udaibir S Das, 2012. "Sovereign Debt Restructurings 1950-2010: Literature Survey, Data, and Stylized Facts," IMF Working Papers 2012/203, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Chuck Fang & Julian Schumacher & Christoph Trebesch, 2021. "Restructuring Sovereign Bonds: Holdouts, Haircuts and the Effectiveness of CACs," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 69(1), pages 155-196, March.
    5. Ran Bi & Marcos Chamon & Jeromin Zettelmeyer, 2016. "The Problem that Wasn’t: Coordination Failures in Sovereign Debt Restructurings," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 64(3), pages 471-501, August.
    6. Kartik Anand & Prasanna Gai, 2019. "Pre-emptive sovereign debt restructuring and holdout litigation," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(2), pages 364-381.
    7. Trebesch, Christoph & Zabel, Michael, 2017. "The output costs of hard and soft sovereign default," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 416-432.
    8. Josefin Meyer & Carmen M Reinhart & Christoph Trebesch, 2022. "Sovereign Bonds Since Waterloo," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(3), pages 1615-1680.
    9. Mitchener, Kris & Trebesch, Christoph, 2021. "Sovereign Debt in the 21st Century: Looking Backward, Looking Forward," CEPR Discussion Papers 15935, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Wolfgang Eggert & Maximilian Stephan & Janine Temme & Handirk von Ungern-Sternberg, 2015. "Diversification, Risk Aversion and Expectation in a Holdout Scenario," CESifo Working Paper Series 5527, CESifo.
    11. Aguiar, Mark & Amador, Manuel, 2014. "Sovereign Debt," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 647-687, Elsevier.
    12. Christoph Trebesch, 2019. "Resolving sovereign debt crises: the role of political risk," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(2), pages 421-444.
    13. Silvia Marchesi, 2016. "Life after default? Private vs. official sovereign debt restructurings," Development Working Papers 398, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano, revised 26 Aug 2016.
    14. Elard, Ilaf, 2020. "Three-player sovereign debt negotiations," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 217-240.
    15. Sayantan Ghosal & Marcus Miller & Kannika Thampanishvong, 2019. "Waiting for a haircut? A bargaining perspective on sovereign debt restructuring," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(2), pages 405-420.
    16. Michael Tomz & Mark L.J. Wright, 2013. "Empirical Research on Sovereign Debt and Default," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 247-272, May.
    17. Silvia Marchesi & Tania Masi, 2019. "Sovereign risk after sovereign restructuring. Private and official default," Working Papers 423, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2019.
    18. Mark Aguiar & Manuel Amador, 2013. "Sovereign Debt: A Review," NBER Working Papers 19388, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Reinhart, Carmen M. & Trebesch, Christoph, 2014. "A Distant Mirror of Debt, Default, and Relief," Discussion Papers in Economics 21832, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    20. Tamon Asonuma & Christoph Trebesch, 2016. "Sovereign Debt Restructurings: Preemptive Or Post-Default," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 175-214, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    sovereign debt; sovereign default; legal disputes; creditor lawsuits;
    All these keywords.

    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:ces:ceswps:_5319. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.