This Conference is the fourth in an annual series organised by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and the Pierre du Bois Foundation for Current History.
The conference brings together leading scholars from economics, international political economy, economic history, political science, and finance to provide a trans-disciplinary perspective on debt crises. The conference will also include a panel with senior policymakers who will offer reflections on the recent European debt crisis.
The recent European crisis, which coincides with the 30th anniversary of the Latin American debt crisis, has again raised important issues which have been part of the international policy debate over at least the past century. An important aspect of this conference is that, while Europe has developed its own brand of problems, its experience is not unique. It is the aim of this conference to explore the many relevant parallels between the recent European experience and those experiences of previous government debt crises.
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what lessons can be learned from previous debt crises in France. Tim Le Goff will be assessing how France restructured wartime short-term state debt after the Revolution and crash of 1789. Nicolas Delalande will be looking at the manner in which the French government used economic, political, and legal means to protect the credit of the state from speculation during the interwar period. Gabriel Geisler will be presenting his research on Havas' media coverage of foreign loans in France.
The focus of the second panel of the conference will move eastward within Europe to explore Hellenistic debt crises. Alexandros Apostolides will present his findings on the manner in which a small deficit in Cyprus created a political impasse during the interwar period due to the inflexibility of the British colonial finance structure. Olga Christodoulaki will draw lessons from the role that the National Bank played in the Greek debt crises of the 1890s and 1920s.
The third panel will consider what lessons can be learned from American debt crises. Eoin Drea will use the historic development path of the Federal Reserve between 1913 and 1935 to imagine how the structure and role of the European Central Bank might develop in the future. Franklin Noll will evaluate how the United States handled war debt in the wake of the U.S. Civil War. Richard Sylla and John Wallis will determine why American states incurred heavy debts, defaulted, and redid their constitutions to limit the ability of state governments to incur debts between 1837 and 1857.
The fourth panel will delve into litigious issues in government debt crises. Jérôme Sgard will inspect the International Monetary Fund's role in sovereign debt restructuring between 1970 and 1989. Henrik Enderlein, Julian Schumacher, and Christoph Trebesch analyse lawsuits filed against developing country debtor governments following sovereign default or restructuring. Sung Hui Kim, Mark Weidemaier, and Mitu Gulati investigate the Nazi government's use of exchange offers to consolidate its foreign debt and address its foreign exchange problems.
Important and yet to be fully understood issues related to debt crises include: the ability or inability of markets to monitor debt accumulation, the logic of government debt crises including the forms and patterns of speculation and policy remedies, the political economy of debt crises, the interaction between political models (federalism, confederalism) and crises, constitutional remedies (“golden rule”), regulatory remedies, relations with central banks, etc. It is our goal that Government Debt Crises: Politics, Economics, and History will address these issues and contribute to a better understand of debt crises worldwide.
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PROGRAMME
FRIDAY 14 DECEMBER
12:00 – 13:00 | LUNCH
13:00 – 13:15 |WELCOME
IRINA DU BOIS, President of the Pierre du Bois Foundation
MARC FLANDREAU, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
13:15 – 14:45 | SESSION I
WHEN GERMANY WAS THE PROBLEM
CHAIR JOHN WALLIS, University of Maryland
ALBRECHT RITSCHL, London School of Economics
The German interwar debt crisis and its resolution in the 1950s
MARK WEIDEMAIER, UNC School of Law
A People’s History of Collective Action Clauses
15:00 – 16:30 | SESSION II
LITIGIOUS ISSUES
CHAIR TIM LE GOFF, York University and University of Paris-Sorbonne
MARC FLANDREAU, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
Revisiting the Origins of the Corporation of Foreign Bondholders
JULIAN SCHUMACHER, Free University Berlin
Sovereign Defaults in Court: The Rise of Creditor Legislation, 1976–2010
16:30 – 17:00 | COFFEE BREAK
17:00 – 18:30 | SESSION III
« TOUJOURS » LA DETTE
CHAIR ALEXANDRE SWOBODA, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
TIM LE GOFF, York University and University of Paris-Sorbonne
The Crash of 1788
NICOLAS DELALANDE, Sciences Po, Paris
Protecting State Credit: Speculation, Trust, and Sovereignty in 1920s France
18:30 – 20:00 | COCKTAILS
SATURDAY 15 DECEMBER 2012
9:00 – 10:30 | SESSION IV
THE US, TOO
CHAIR ALBRECHT RITSCHL, London School of Economics
FRANKLIN NOLL, Noll Historical Consulting, LLC
Repudiation! The Crisis of United States Civil War Debt, 1865-1870
JOHN WALLIS, University of Maryland
Debt, Default and Constitutional Reform: US State Debt Crises and Their Aftermath, 1830-1857
10:30 – 11:00 | COFFEE BREAK
11:00 – 13:15 | SESSION V
GATEKEEPING
CHAIR CHRISTOPH TREBESCH, University of Munich
GABRIEL GEISLER, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
Havas and the Foreign Loan Market, 1889 to 1921
UGO PANIZZA, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
Conflicts of Interest, Reputation, and the Interwar Debt Crisis: Banksters or Bad Luck
MITU GULATI, Duke Law School
Lawyers: Gatekeepers of the Sovereign Debt Market?
13:15 – 14:45 | LUNCH
14:45 – 16:15 | SESSION VI
GREEKS BEARING GIFTS
CHAIR MARK WEIDEMAIER, UNC School of Law
ALEXANDROS APOSTOLIDES, European University of Cyprus
Small Debt, Large Problems in Cyprus: How Even Small Debt in a British Colony Led to the Political Crisis and Violence in October 1931
CONCLUSION
16:15 – 16:45 | COFFEE BREAK
Conference Programme Print Version here
Free entrance
Please register at: trevin.stratton@graduateinstitute.ch
Auditorium Jacques-Freymond, Site Barton, 132 rue de Lausanne
Access map
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