Sovereign Debt Defaults and Debt Restructurings, 1930-1960: Private Creditors and Official Intervention

This dissertation analyses the resolution of sovereign debt defaults from the outbreak of the international debt crisis in the early 1930s to its final settlement well after WWII. The central thesis of this dissertation is that the economic and political consequences of the Depression fundamentally modified available sovereign debt resolution mechanisms and opened the door to the centrality of debt relief in the resolution of interwar debt defaults. This dissertation shows that in the 1930s, secondary markets, rather than negotiations between bondholders' committees and debtors, were at centre stage in debt management strategies in the 1930s.From the late-1930s onwards, a more interventionist stance on foreign affairs by the US government crystalised in a framework linking the construction of commercial, financial, and strategic alliances with the permanent settlement of defaults and the provision of debt relief. Beyond the temporary interruption of foreign debt service under debt moratoria during the Great Depression, this dissertation emphasises the importance of debt deleveraging and concessionary settlements as key mechanisms for relieving sovereign governments from the burden of foreign debts accumulated during the 1920s.By emphasizing that debt relief is one of the keystones of the construction of post-WWII international economic and political order and emphasising the role that creditors' governments had in this outcome, this dissertation contributes to enriching our understanding of the 20th century's arduous experience with defaults and restructurings.