Debt Games
Strategic Interaction in International Debt Rescheduling
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:31st May '96
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This book explains the significant variation that has emerged over time and across cases in international debt rescheduling during the last one hundred and seventy years.
International debt rescheduling, both in earlier epochs and our present one, has been marked by a flurry of bargaining. In this process, significant variation has emerged over time and across cases in the extent to which debtors have undertaken economic adjustment, banks or bondholders have written down debts, and creditor governments and international organizations have intervened in negotiations. Debt Games develops and applies a situational theory of bargaining to analyze the adjustment undertaken by debtors and the concessions provided by lenders in international debt rescheduling. This approach has two components: a focus on each actor's individual situation, defined by its political and economic bargaining resources, and a complementary focus on changes in their position. The model proves successful in accounting for bargaining outcomes in eighty-four percent of the sixty-one cases, which include all instances of Peruvian and Mexican debt rescheduling over the last one hundred and seventy years as well as Argentine and Brazilian rescheduling between 1982 and 1994.
"Combining rich historical detail with an innovative and broad ranging application of game theory, Aggarwal has brought penetrating new insight to the old issue of international debt negotiation. Nowhere will a reader find a more rewarding analysis of the strategic interaction between troubled debtors and their creditors. This is must reading for anyone interested in the complexities of international bargaining." Benjamin J. Cohen, University of California, Santa Barbara
"Aggarwal's Debt Games provides an ambitious mapping of the empirical reality of international debt rescheduling into simple normal game models. His 'situational theory' goes well beyond standard case study methods through a greater specificity that allows him to achieve an impressive level of postdiction over a wide range of cases using only a few simple assumptions. And his candor about the limits of the assumptions and his predictions is both refreshing and illuminating. The result is an analysis that pioneers an innovative strategy for combining theory and evidence while helping us better understand debt rescheduling." Duncan Snidal, The University of Chicago
"Debt Games is an ambitious and enlightening study of debt negotiations involving Latin American countries over a period of more than 150 years. Vinod Aggarwal systematically uses a strategic interaction model as the basis for a comparative analysis of debt negotiations, drawing on a vast range of empirical material to understand the sources of strategies. Debt Games will be rewarding reading for students of international and comparative political economy." Robert O. Keohane, Harvard University
"It is well balanced, with a nice mix of abstract concepts, real world indicators, and empirical richness that goes beyond illustrative case studies. I have no doubt that one could make a different set of trade-offs between theoretical complexity and empirical applicability. But this impressive book should serve as a useful banchmark for years to come. Scholars and graduate students alike will find it to be a valuable source of modeling ideas that goes well beyond the examination of international debt rescheduling." Cedric Dupont, American political review
ISBN: 9780521352024
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 40mm
Weight: 1090g
632 pages