Debt Restructuring: Orderly, Selective and Unavoidable
DEBT, DEFAULT AND IRELAND: ESSAYS ON THE IRISH CRISIS, Brian M. Lucey, Constantin Gurdgiev, Charles Larkin, eds., Blackwell Publishers, April 2012
14 Pages Posted: 16 Jan 2012
Date Written: January 1, 2012
Abstract
From the Irish perspective, the impact of debt overhang on long-term growth in the advanced economies presents a clear warning. Ireland’s debt overhang is outright extreme. Across the 18 advanced economies, weighted average real economic debts stood at 307% of GDP at the end of 2010 and are expected to rise to ca 310-312% of GDP or GNP by the end of 2011. Ireland’s real economy debt to GDP ratio is likely to reach above 400% of GDP. In this paper, we show that this level of debt overhang can be expected to permanently reduce potential rate of growth in the Irish economy to those consistent with the deflationary stagnation. In addition, we also show that the internal devaluation option is not likely to produce meaningful debt reductions at these levels of debt overhang. It is, therefore, inevitable that Ireland will need to restructure some of its debts. We conclude by showing that an orderly restructuring of selective debts can result in simultaneous alleviation of the debt overhang and its effects on growth, creating potential condition for swift recovery from the insolvency crisis.
Keywords: Debt Overhang, Ireland, Irish Household Debt, Irish Public Debt, Irish Economy, Irish Debt Crisis, Euro Area Debt Crisis, Eurozone Debt Crisis
JEL Classification: E20, E44, F32, F33, F34, F36, F42, F43, E61, E62, E65
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
By Emmanuel Farhi, Gita Gopinath, ...
-
By Emmanuel Farhi, Gita Gopinath, ...
-
The Eurozone Crisis: How Banks and Sovereigns Came to Be Joined at the Hip
By Ashoka Mody and Damiano Sandri
-
How to Evaluate Gdp-Linked Warrants: Price and Repayment Capacity
By Ken Miyajima
-
By Stijn Claessens, Ashoka Mody, ...
-
The Eurozone Debt Crisis -- The Options Now
By Lee C. Buchheit and Mitu Gulati
-
Financing Asia’s Infrastructure: Modes of Development and Integration of Asian Financial Markets