When Nations Can't Default

A History of War Reparations and Sovereign Debt

Simon Hinrichsen

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2023
• Topic: Economics
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009343930
• Subtopic: Macroeconomics
• Index: Economics

War reparations have been large and small, repaid and defaulted on, but the consequences have almost always been significant. Ever since Keynes made his case against German reparations in The Economic Consequences of the Peace, the effects of transfer payments have been hotly debated. When Nations Can't Default tells the history of war reparations and their consequences by combining history, political economy, and open economy macroeconomics. It visits often forgotten episodes and tells the story of how reparations were mostly repaid - and when they were not. Analysing fifteen episodes of war reparations, this book argues that reparations are unlike other sovereign debt because repayment is enforced by military and political force, making it a senior liability of the state.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Data and Replication
• 1 Introduction
• 2 A Framework for War Reparations
• 3 Sovereign Debt
• 4 Napoleonic Wars Reparations
• 5 Haiti Indemnity and Sovereign Debt
• 6 Franco-Prussian War Indemnities
• 7 Smaller Nineteenth-Century War Reparations
• 8 German World War I Reparations
• 9 Russian and Bulgarian World War I Reparations
• 10 World War II Reparations to the Soviet Bloc
• 11 World War II Reparations to the Allies
• 12 Iraq Gulf War Reparations
• 13 When Nations Can’t Default
• Appendix: Letter to Creditor Committees
• References
• Index