998,318 research outputs found

    Sovereign debt and its restructuring framework in the Euro area. Bruegel Working Paper 2013/05, August 2013

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    To compensate for the inflexibility of fixed exchange rates, the euro area needs flexibility through a system of orderly debt restructuring. With virtually no room for macroeconomic manoeuvring since the crisis onset, fiscal austerity has been the main instrument for achieving reductions in public debt levels; but because austerity also weakens growth, public debt ratios have barely budged. Austerity has also implied continued high private debt ratios. And these debt burdens have perpetuated economic stasis. Economic theory,history, and the recent experience all call for a principled debt restructuring mechanism as an integral element of the euro area’s design. Sovereign debt should be recognised as equity (a residual claim on the sovereign), operationalised by the automatic lowering of the debt burden upon the breach of contractually-specified thresholds. Making debt more equity-like is also the way forward for speedy private deleveraging. This debt-equity swap principle is a needed shock absorber for the future but will also serve as the principle to deal with the overhang of ‘legacy’ debt

    Bank ownership, lending relationships and capital structure: Evidence from Spain

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    This paper analyses the influence of bank ownership and lending on capital structure for a sample of listed and unlisted Spanish firms in the period 2005–2012. The results suggest that bank ownership allows banks to obtain better information and reduce the agency costs of debt, as it has a positive relationship with the maturity of debt and a negative relationship with the cost of debt. These results are consistent with the predominance of the monitoring effect in bank ownership over the expropriation effect. The role of banks as shareholders and lenders also contributes to reduce agency cost of debt, as it reduces debt cost. JEL classification: G32, Keywords: Bank ownership, Bank lending, Debt, Debt maturity, Debt cos

    The Debt Limit and the Constitution: How the Fourteenth Amendment Forbids Fiscal Obstructionism

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    The statutory debt limit restricts the funds that can be borrowed to meet the government\u27s financial obligations. On the other hand, the Fourteenth Amendment\u27s Public Debt Clause mandates that all the government\u27s financial obligations be met. This Note argues that the Public Debt Clause is violated when government actions create substantial doubt about the validity of the public debt, a standard that encompasses government actions that fall short of defaulting on or directly repudiating the public debt. The Note proposes a test to determine when substantial doubt is created. This substantial doubt test analyzes the political and economic environment at the time of the government\u27s actions and the subjective apprehension exhibited by debt holders. Applying this test, this Note concludes that Congress\u27s actions during the 1995–96 and 2011 debt-limit debates violated the Public Debt Clause, though Congress\u27s conduct during the debate over the debt limit in 2002 did not. And under a departmentalist understanding of executive power, a conclusion of this nature would be the basis for the president to ignore the debt limit when congressional actions create unconstitutional doubt about the validity of the public debt

    Debt and Health

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    Debt problems in the UK have recently become much more severe, especially for the lowest income groups, and we examine here their impact on health, using data from the national FamiliesÂŽ and ChildrenÂŽs Survey (FACS). We model the relationship between debt and health as a simultaneous two-way interaction, and find that debt levels have a negative effect on both physical and psychological health. We find that debt repayment structure, defined as the percentage of debt borrowed in high-interest categories, has an impact on health independent of the level of debt. The interaction between debt and health may aggravate the poverty trap, by pushing heavily-indebted low-income people into ill-health, which then makes it difficult for them to acquire or hold on to the steady jobs needed to ease their debt problems. We also find that worry has a negative influence on debt management capacity, and thence on health, which makes it more difficult for those caught in a debt trap to escape from it. Membership of credit unions tends to reduce worry, however, and thereby may facilitate escape from the debt-ill health spiral

    “External Debt, Domestic Investment and Economic Growth in Cameroon” A system Estimation Approach

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    The feedback of external debt on economic growth through gross domestic investment has provided quite interesting results throughout the world especially in developing countries where external and internal borrowing have been a tradition. Based on a system estimation approach, using Two Stage Least Squares as an estimation technique in the case of Cameroon for a period of 34 years (1980-2013), the results reveal that while domestic investment increases economic growth, external debt retards economic growth in Cameroon, revealing the influence of debt overhang. It was therefore concluded that external debts adversely affect economic growth in Cameroon and thus, as a major recommendation, the authorities are expected to improve on the performance of external debt through proper debt management, a complete debt relief and using the debt in productive sectors for production of goods and services

    Public Debt as Private Wealth

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    Government bonds are interest-bearing assets. Increasing public debt increases income, wealth, and consumption demand. The smaller government expenditure is, the larger consumption demand must be in equilibrium, and the larger must be public debt. Conversely, lower public debt implies higher government spending and taxation. Public debt plays, thus, an important role in establishing equilibrium. It distributes output between consumers and government. In case of insufficient demand, a larger public debt entails higher consumption and less public spending. If upper bounds on public debt are introduced (as in the Maastricht treaty), such constraints place lower bounds on taxation and public spending or may even rule out the existence of macroeconomic equilibrium altogether. Domar(1944) and Gehrels(1957) have discussed similar issues in an unemployment setting. In contrast, this note considers the full employment case and looks at adjustments in debt, taxes and government spending that preserve full employment. The explicit modelling of some adjustment processes that have not been considered in the earlier contributions leads to somewhat different and, in a sense, more "debt-friendly" results
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