Lending to the Borrower from Hell
eBook - ePub

Lending to the Borrower from Hell

Debt, Taxes, and Default in the Age of Philip II

  1. 328 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Lending to the Borrower from Hell

Debt, Taxes, and Default in the Age of Philip II

About this book

What the loans and defaults of a sixteenth-century Spanish king can tell us about sovereign debt today

Why do lenders time and again loan money to sovereign borrowers who promptly go bankrupt? When can this type of lending work? As the United States and many European nations struggle with mountains of debt, historical precedents can offer valuable insights. Lending to the Borrower from Hell looks at one famous case—the debts and defaults of Philip II of Spain. Ruling over one of the largest and most powerful empires in history, King Philip defaulted four times. Yet he never lost access to capital markets and could borrow again within a year or two of each default. Exploring the shrewd reasoning of the lenders who continued to offer money, Mauricio Drelichman and Hans-Joachim Voth analyze the lessons from this important historical example.

Using detailed new evidence collected from sixteenth-century archives, Drelichman and Voth examine the incentives and returns of lenders. They provide powerful evidence that in the right situations, lenders not only survive despite defaults—they thrive. Drelichman and Voth also demonstrate that debt markets cope well, despite massive fluctuations in expenditure and revenue, when lending functions like insurance. The authors unearth unique sixteenth-century loan contracts that offered highly effective risk sharing between the king and his lenders, with payment obligations reduced in bad times.

A fascinating story of finance and empire, Lending to the Borrower from Hell offers an intelligent model for keeping economies safe in times of sovereign debt crises and defaults.

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Yes, you can access Lending to the Borrower from Hell by Mauricio Drelichman,Hans-Joachim Voth in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Economics & Economic History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication Page
  5. Contents
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Prologue
  8. Chapter 1: Lending to the Sound of Cannon
  9. Chapter 2: Philip’s Empire
  10. Chapter 3: Taxes, Debts, and Institutions
  11. Chapter 4: The Sustainable Debts of Philip II
  12. Chapter 5: Lending to the Borrower from Hell
  13. Chapter 6: Serial Defaults, Serial Profits
  14. Chapter 7: Risk Sharing with the Monarch
  15. Chapter 8: Tax, Empire, and the Logic of Spanish Decline
  16. Epilogue: Financial Folly and Spain’s Black Legend
  17. References
  18. Index