Unsustainable debt and the political economy of lending: constraining the IMF’s role in sovereign debt crises

Monday, November 25, 2013 12:45 PM EST (UTC–05:00)
Speaker:
Nov
25

The timely resolution of severe debt crises has long been one of the most difficult challenges for global financial cooperation. Focusing on the case of Greece, the paper to be presented at this event examines how the euro crisis precipitated large International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans that violated the framework developed on the basis of the preceding decade to prevent a costly delay in restructuring.

The paper reveals that safeguards meant to prevent the IMF from providing support for crisis countries without a reasonably clear path to debt sustainability failed. In fact, changes made in the context of the euro crisis to the IMF’s framework for lending in severe sovereign debt crises will weaken the IMF’s effectiveness in future crises. The paper concludes with four suggestions for how to re-establish an adequate framework for IMF intervention in severe debt crises in the future

Event Speaker