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The loan pyramid came crashing down in August 1982, when the Mexican government suddenly found it-
self unable to roll over its private debts (that is, borrow new funds to replace loans that were due) and was un-
prepared to quickly shift gears from being a net borrower to a net repayer. Soon after, a slew of other sovereign
debtors sought rescheduling agreements, and the "debt crisis" was officially under way. Though experts do not
really understand why the crisis started precisely when it did, its basic causes are clear. The sharp rise in world
interest rates in the early eighties greatly increased the interest burden on debtor countries because most of their
borrowings were indexed to short-term interest rates. At the same time, export receipts of developing countries
suffered as commodity prices began to fall, reversing their rise of the seventies. More generally, sluggish
growth in the industrialized countries made debt servicing much more difficult.
Of course, the debtors were not simply hapless victims of external market forces. The governments of
many of the seventeen nations referred to as Highly Indebted Countries (HICs) made the situation worse by
badly mismanaging their economies. In many countries during the seventies, commercial bank or World Bank
loans quickly escaped through the back door in the form of private capital flight. Capital assets that "fled"
abroad from the HICs were 103 per cent of long-term public and publicly guaranteed debt. Loans intended for
infrastructure investment at home were rerouted to buy condominiums in Miami. In a few countries, most nota-
bly Brazil, capital flight was not severe. But a great deal of the loan money was spent internally on dubious
large-scale, government-directed investment projects. Though well intentioned, the end result was the same: not
enough money was invested in productive projects that could be used to service the debt.
Not all of the debtor countries were plagued by mismanagement. South Korea, considered by many to be a
problem debtor at the onset of the debt crisis, maintained a strong export-oriented economy. The resulting
growth in real GNP – averaging 9,8 per cent per year between 1982 and 1988 – allowed South Korea to make
the largest debt repayments in the world in 1986 and 1987. Korea's debt fell from $47 billion to $40 billion be-
tween the end of 1985 and the end of 1987.
But for most debtor countries, the eighties were a decade of economic stagnation. Loan renegotiations with
bank committees and with government lenders became almost constant. While lenders frequently agreed to roll
over a portion of interest due (thus increasing their loans), prospects for net new funds seemed to dry up for all
but a few developing countries, located mostly in fast-growing Asia. In this context bankers and government
officials began to consider many schemes for clearing away the developing-country debt problem.
In theory, loans by governments and by international lending organizations are senior to private debts –
they must be repaid first. But private lenders are the ones who have been pressing to have their loans repaid.
Many Third World debtors, particularly in Latin America, chafe at being asked to pay down their large
debts. Their leaders plead that debt is strangling their economies and that repayments are soaking away re-
sources desperately needed to finance growth. Although these pleas evoke considerable sympathy from leaders
of rich countries, opinions over what to do are widely divided.
A staggering range of "solutions" has been proposed. Some of the more ambitious plans would either force
private creditors to forgive part of their debts or use large doses of taxpayer resources to sponsor a settlement,
or both. Current official policy, which is based on the Brady Plan (after U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas
Brady), is for governments of industrialized countries to subsidize countries where there is scope for negotiat-
ing large-scale debt-reduction agreements with the private commercial banks. In principle, countries must also
demonstrate the will to implement sound economic policies, both fiscal and monetary, to qualify. A small num-
ber of Brady Plan deals have been completed to date, the most notable being Mexico's 1990 debt restructuring.
Toward the end of the eighties, a number of sovereign debtors began experimenting with so-called market-
based debt-reduction schemes, in which countries repurchased their debts at a discount by paying cash or by
giving creditors equity in domestic industries. On the surface these plans appear to hurt banks because debts are
retired at a fraction of their full value. But a closer inspection reveals why the commercial banks responded so
enthusiastically.
Consider the Bolivian buy-back of March 1988. When the Bolivian deal was first discussed in late 1986,
Bolivia's government had guaranteed $670 million in debt to commercial banks. In world secondary markets
this debt traded at six cents on the dollar. That is, buyers of debt securities were willing to pay, and some sellers
were willing to accept, only six cents per dollar of principal. Using funds that primarily were secretly donated
by neutral third countries – rumored to include Spain, the Netherlands, and Brazil – Bolivia's government spent
$34 million in March 1988 to buy back $308 million worth of debt at eleven cents on the dollar. Eleven cents
was also the price that prevailed for the remaining Bolivian debt immediately after the repurchase. At first
glance the buy-back might seem a triumph, almost halving Bolivia's debt. The fact that the price rose from six
to eleven cents was interpreted by some observers as evidence that the deal had strengthened prospects for Bo-
livia's economy.
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