Too Little, Too Late: The Quest to Resolve Sovereign Debt Crises

The current approach to resolving sovereign debt crises does not work: sovereign debt restructurings come too late and address too little. Though unresolved debt crises impose enormous costs on societies, many recent restructurings have not been deep enough to provide the conditions for economic recovery (as illustrated by the Greek debt restructuring of 2012). And if the debtor decides not to accept the terms demanded by the creditors, finalizing a restructuring can be slowed by legal challenges (as illustrated by the recent case of Argentina, deemed as "the trial of the century").

A fresh start for distressed debtors is a basic principle of a well-functioning market economy, yet there is no international bankruptcy framework for sovereign debts. While this problem is not new, the United Nations and the global community are now willing to do something about it. Providing guidance for those who intend to take up reform, this book assesses the relative merits of various debt-restructuring proposals, especially in relation to the main deficiencies of the current nonsystem. With contributions by leading academics and practitioners, Too Little, Too Late reflects the overwhelming consensus among specialists on the need to find workable solutions.

Martin Guzman is a Research Associate at the Department of Finance & Economics of Columbia University Graduate School of Business, and an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics of University of Buenos Aires. He is the co-editor, with Joe Stiglitz and Jose Antonio Ocampo, of Too Little, Too Late: The Quest to Resolve Sovereign Debt Crises (CUP, 2016).

José Antonio Ocampo is codirector of Banco de la Republica (Colombia’s central bank), professor in the School of International and Public Affairs (on leave for public service), and copresident of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University. His books with Columbia University Press are Growth and Policy in Developing Countries: A Structuralist Approach (2009, coauthor), Development Cooperation in Times of Crisis (2012, coedited with José Antonio Alonso), and Too Little, Too Late: The Quest to Resolve Sovereign Debt Crises (2016, also coedited with Joseph E. Stiglitz), and The Welfare State Revisited (2018).