2005 Articles

Redesigning the international lender of last resort

Bolton, Patrick; Skeel, David A.

This paper is concerned with the issue of how to balance bailouts (or "lending into arrears") with debt reductions (or "private sector involvement") in the resolution of sovereign debt crises. It provides a review of recent proposals to regulate sovereign debt renegotiations under a Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism. In addition to defending a sovereign bankruptcy proposal we have put forward in recent work, this article proposes a major reorientation of the IMF's role in sovereign debt crises.