Sep 09 2024 35 mins 4
When, why and how do countries go bust? That’s the topic of the latest New Money Review podcast, where I’m joined by Greg Makoff, a former physicist, banker, government advisor and now senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Makoff is the author of a recent book on what has been called “the most contentious default in history”—Argentina’s 2001-2016 debt restructuring.
In the podcast, we discuss:
- When, why and how countries go bust
- What distinguishes a sovereign insolvency from a corporate or personal bankruptcy
- Who has jurisdiction over sovereign defaults?
- What brings governments and creditors to the table?
- Sovereign immunity and the negotiating power between debtor and creditor
- What went wrong in Argentina’s debt restructuring?
- How Elliott Capital Management made billions on defaulted Argentinian debt
- The broader public policy lessons of Argentina’s debt restructuring
- China, the IMF and the geopolitics of sovereign debt
- Default risk in domestic and foreign currency bonds
- Why sovereign debt problems will never go away
