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Economists have suggested it was optimal to signal the odious character of bonds when they were issued. However, since the odious debt doctrine has not been recognized by any court, one could argue that denouncing odious debts is useless. Exploiting a unique historical episode, this paper quantifies the impact of protests on odious debts. In 1906, the Russian government floated a bond in Paris to cover the costs of its war against Japan but also to raise money to crush the political movements wishing to reform Russia's political system. Issued without parliamentary consent, this loan met with fierce opposition. Press campaigns in Great Britain, France and Germany denounced its odious character. If failure or success is determined solely by the ability to prevent a loan from being issued, then the campaign failed. We argue, however, that failure or success should be determined in light of the financial costs imposed on the issuer for future loans and even the ability to force a postponement of these loans. We show that these campaigns increased the yields of all Russian bonds traded in Paris, and thus Russia's future borrowing cost. Yields on the 1906 loan, which was specially targeted by the campaigns, rose even more. However, once the press campaigns stopped, yields experienced a declining trend, highlighting the important role the press may have on odious debts. ; SCOPUS: ar.j ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The paper investigates how the global financial and the ensuing European sovereign crisis affected the public debt dynamics of the EU member countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which countries are generally facing difficulties in keeping fiscal discipline as a negative consequence of global and regional financial turbulences. It reveals how economic factors (real GDP growth, interest rates, primary deficit) affected the trend of public debt in the period after 2008 among new EU members on the basis of Eurostat and European Economy statistics. After the briefing of some relevant government debt theories (among others Marcet and Scott, 2003, Díaz-Giménez and Giovanetti, 2007, Garcia et al., 2011, Broner et al., 2014), the paper provides a descriptive analysis of the debt structure of eight Central and Eastern European countries in recent years. It compares the currency composition of the governments' liabilities, discusses the role the domestic public sector plays in financing public debt, and whether there is evidence of domestic financing crowding out private investment in these countries. In the light of CDS premia and reference yields financing costs are contrasted and the way debt management strategies are formulated and government debt instruments are chosen in order to mitigate the financial burden caused by government indebtedness are compared. Finally, the paper summarises the lessons of the Hungarian self-financing programme launched in April 2014 by the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary).

The regulation of credit rating agencies and their activities has been evolving significantly in recent years as the response to difficulties experienced during the economic crises. According to number of post-crises analysis, it is claimed that rating agencies played a role and are guilty for much of the crisis events. Until then the regulators somehow neglected to regulate these financial market entities, despite the important role they perform in the whole financial system. The paper addresses the background and process of assigning sovereign ratings, role of sovereign ratings on the financial marketand current regulation on providing sovereign rating in the European Union. The aim is to confirm or disprove the benefits of restrictions put on sovereign debt ratings by the European rules using mostly the descriptive and empirical method. "This is a targeted publication on the one topic (Financial Law). It has been requested for inclusion in WOS."

Public debts capitalize into property prices. Therefore, property owners tend to favor tax over debt financing for government spending. In contrast, tenants do not suffer from debt capitalization. Thus, they tend to favor debt over tax financing. Our model of the resulting democratic fight between property owners and tenants over public debts and taxes predicts that the property ownership rate in a jurisdiction negatively effects the debt level. We provide empirical support for this hypothesis by analyzing a cross-section of the 171 communities in the Swiss Canton of Zurich in the year 2000.

This item is part of the Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements (PRISM) digital collection, a collaborative initiative between Florida Atlantic University and University of Central Florida in the Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials (PALMM).

Public debts capitalize into property prices. This so far neglected fact has important consequences for the tax vs. debt choice. Property owners suffer more from the debt burden and, thus, have a stronger preference for tax financing of government spending than tenants. As a consequence of the resulting democratic struggle between property owners and tenants, the property ownership rate in a jurisdiction negatively affects public debts. We provide empirical support for this hypothesis by analyzing a cross-section of the 171 communities in the Swiss Canton of Zurich in the year 2000.

The paper examines the relationship between more than 30 macroeconomic variables and debt-to-GDP ratios for the household, non-financial corporation and aggregate debt in a panel of European Union countries. The GDP level and the ratio of house prices to income are found to be positively correlated with the debt-to-GDP ratio, whereas the real interest rate, the inflation rate, economic sentiment and the government debt level are negatively correlated with the debt-to-GDP ratio. Low interest rates and the house price-to-income ratio predict growth in the future debt-to-GDP ratio. Moreover, countries that have had a financial crisis have typically gone through a period of deleveraging afterwards.

Published also as Studies in history, economics and public law, ed. by the Faculty of political science of Columbian university, vol. LXXXV, no. 2, whole no. 197. ; Vita. ; Bibliography: p. 100-105. ; Mode of access: Internet.

This paper reviews the main obstacles to human and social development posed by the current external debt burdens of the least development countries. In particular, it analyses the shortcomings of the mechanisms and thresholds used to assess the sustainability of debt levels in the HIPC Initiative. An alternative needs-based approach analysis of debt sustainability is proposed. The methodology explicitly emphasizes the need to prioritize poor countries' social and poverty reducing expenditures over external debt servicing. Such an 'affordable debt service' analysis of debt sustainability shows clearly that additional debt reduction is required if the HIPCs are to achieve minimum levels of human development by 2015. – debt ; poverty ; economic development ; foreign aid ; debt sustainability

Does internal debt matter? Japan's yen-denominated public debt now totals 140% of GDP, and this number continues to rise rapidly. What constraints will this growing debt finally encounter? I argue that finance can postpone but not eliminate payments owed by the government to the private sector. The combination of continuing Keynsian budget deficits, bleeding banks, overleveraged municipalities and massive pension liabilities will ultimately bring into question the credibility of the government's many promises. The result could be a massive issuance of new currency.

"Another sign of a failed democracy is when a supranational body is allowed to bypass the power of an elected government in order to dictate policy, either directly or through setting terms that circumscribe choices. Most recently, sovereign debt crises have placed several Eurozone nations in this quandary; their economic affairs are largely determined by the European Union's so-called troika—European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF has a long history in this regard as an enforcer for foreign bondholders, especially in imposing structural-adjustment policies on indebted nations in the global South. . But what do we call a democracy that permits its financial elites to hold the citizenry in near-servitude through usurious debt contracts? Can a democracy be considered healthy when household debt so constrains populations that their life choices are effectively voided, and when the monopoly of creditors extends beyond the economic realm to the political control over lawmakers? These were the circumstances under which activists gave birth to Occupy Wall Street (OWS, Occupy) in the fall of 2011. In the four years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers precipitated the US financial crash, the asymmetrical treatment doled out to debtors and creditors had become so familiar and routine that the ubiquitous Occupy street slogan 'Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!' required no explanation. In Europe, where elites tried to pass on the costs of their sovereign-debt crises to the most vulnerable populations—the young and the poor—marchers favored a more defiant posture: 'We won't pay for your crisis.'"

FROM THE EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION: In Debt as Power, Di Muzio and Robbins present a historical account of the modern origins of capitalist debt by looking at how commercial money is produced as debt in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. They expertly demonstrate their key contention -- that debt is a technology of power -- and identify the ways in which the control, production, and distribution of money, as interest-bearing debt, are used to discipline populations. Their sharp analysis brings together histories of the development of the Bank of England and the establishment of permanent national debt with the intensification and expansion of debt, as a "technology of power", under colonialism in a global context. The latter part of the book addresses the consequences of modern regimes of debt and puts forward proposals of what needs to be done, politically, to reverse the problems generated by debt-based economies. The final chapter presents a convincing case for the 99% to use the power of debt to challenge present inequalities and outlines a platform for action suggesting possible alternatives.

This book describes the explosion of debt across the global economy and related requirement of political leaders to pursue exponential growth to meet the demands of creditors and investors. It presents a historical account of the modern origins of capitalist debt by looking at how commercial money is produced as debt in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The book identifies the ways in which the control, production, and distribution of money, as interest-bearing debt, are used to discipline populations. It focuses on the histories of the development of the Bank of England and the establishment of permanent national debt with the intensification and expansion of debt, as a "technology of power", under colonialism in a global context. The book investigates the modern origins of debt as a technology of power by focusing on war, the creation of the "national" debt, and the capitalization of the organized force of the state. It addresses the consequences of modern regimes of debt and puts forward proposals of what needs to be done, politically, to reverse the problems generated by debt-based economies. The book utilizes the term "intensification" rather than spread or proliferation to think about both the amplification and spatial expansion of debt as a technology of power during the era of European colonialism and resistance. Finally, it also presents a convincing case for the 99" to use the power of debt to challenge present inequalities and outlines a platform for action suggesting possible alternatives.

This article sheds light on the question whether arising sovereign credit risk in the EMU has been triggered by the US subprime crunch. By adapting recent econometric methodologies suggested in the related field of speculative bubbles, we find clear evidence for fast diverging (and even explosive) behavior of EMU government bond yields of peripheral countries relative to Germany during the financial and the European debt crisis. This might be caused by flight-to-quality effects to German government bonds coincident with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and by a loss of confidence in the fiscal stability of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain during the European debt crisis. First, we find compelling evidence for bubbles in the Dow Jones Equity Real Estate Investment Trust (REITs) index which serves as a weekly measure of economic activity in the North American real estate sector. Second, in our main analysis, we test whether the collapsing bubble in the housing market triggered the diverging government bond yields during two crisis regimes. Our findings indicate that this was the case in the course of the financial, but not during the EMU sovereign debt crisis. These results suggest that the severe fiscal problems in peripheral countries are homemade rather than imported from the US.