Lessons from the Debt Crisis

This is a study on the international debt crisis, in which the author delves into the history of international capital markets from their beginnings in the mid-19th-century in order to trace a suprisingly consistent pattern of booms in lending, subsequent defaults by debtor countries, and rescues and restructuring more usually for political than for economic reasons. He also looks to the future: estimates of global capital needs over the next twenty years are made and he dismisses alternative economic strategies and their implications for styles of political economy in debtor countries.