IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hes/wpaper/0061.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

State dissolution, sovereign debt and default:Lessons from the UK and Ireland, 1920-1938

Author

Listed:
  • Nathan Foley-Fisher

    (Federal Reserve Board)

  • Eoin McLaughlin

    (University of Edinburgh)

Abstract

We study IrelandÕs inheritance of debt following its secession from the United Kingdom at the beginning of the twentieth century. Exploiting structural differences in bonds guaranteed by the UK and Irish governments, we can identify perceived uncertainty about fiscal responsibility in the aftermath of the sovereign breakup. We document that IrelandÕs default on intergovernmental payments was an important event. Although payments from the Irish government ceased, the UK government instructed its Treasury to continue making interest and principal repayments. As a result, the risk premium on the bonds the UK government had guaranteed fell to about zero. Our findings are consistent with persistent ambiguity about fiscal responsibility far-beyond sovereign breakup. We discuss the political and economic forces behind the Irish and UK governmentsÕ decisions, and suggest lessons for modern-day states that are eyeing dissolution.

Suggested Citation

  • Nathan Foley-Fisher & Eoin McLaughlin, 2014. "State dissolution, sovereign debt and default:Lessons from the UK and Ireland, 1920-1938," Working Papers 0061, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    • Handle: RePEc:hes:wpaper:0061
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ehes.org/wp/EHES_61.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2015. "Financial and Sovereign Debt Crises: Some Lessons Learned and Those Forgotten," Journal of Banking and Financial Economics, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management, vol. 2(4), pages 5-17, June.
    2. MacKay, Robert A., 1934. "Newfoundland Reverts to the Status of a Colony," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(5), pages 895-900, October.
    3. Niall Ferguson, 2006. "Political risk and the international bond market between the 1848 revolution and the outbreak of the First World War," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 59(1), pages 70-112, February.
    4. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Varieties of Crises and Their Dates," Introductory Chapters, in: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press.
    5. Banerjee, Anindya & Lumsdaine, Robin L & Stock, James H, 1992. "Recursive and Sequential Tests of the Unit-Root and Trend-Break Hypotheses: Theory and International Evidence," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(3), pages 271-287, July.
    6. Willard, Kristen L & Guinnane, Timothy W & Rosen, Harvey S, 1996. "Turning Points in the Civil War: Views from the Greenback Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 1001-1018, September.
    7. Flandreau, Marc & Flores, Juan H., 2009. "Bonds and Brands: Foundations of Sovereign Debt Markets, 1820–1830," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(3), pages 646-684, September.
    8. Asaf Zussman & Noam Zussman & Morten Ørregaard Nielsen, 2008. "Asset Market Perspectives on the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(297), pages 84-115, February.
    9. Klovland, Jan Tore, 1994. "Pitfalls in the Estimation of the Yield on British Consols, 1850–1914," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(1), pages 164-187, March.
    10. Stephanie Collet, 2013. "The financial penalty for 'unfair' debt: the case of Cuban bonds at the time of independence," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 17(3), pages 364-387, August.
    11. Cole, Harold L & Kehoe, Patrick J, 1998. "Models of Sovereign Debt: Partial versus General Reputations," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(1), pages 55-70, February.
    12. Richard S. Grossman & Ronan C. Lyons & Kevin Hjortshøj O'rourke & Madalina A. Ursu, 2014. "A monthly stock exchange index for Ireland, 1864–1930," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 18(3), pages 248-276.
    13. Diana Hancock & Wayne Passmore, 2010. "An analysis of government guarantees and the functioning of asset-backed securities markets," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2010-46, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Who Will Get the Bill? Lessons from #EconHis on Scottish Independence #indyref
      by missiaia in NEP-HIS blog on 2014-09-15 18:54:30

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kenny, Sean & McLaughlin, Eoin, 2022. "Political economy of secession: Lessons from the early years of the Irish Free State," QUCEH Working Paper Series 22-05, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    2. Kenny, Seán & McLaughlin, Eoin, 2022. "Political Economy Of Secession: Lessons From The Early Years Of The Irish Free State," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 261, pages 48-78, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Foley-Fisher, Nathan & McLaughlin, Eoin, 2016. "Sovereign debt guarantees and default: Lessons from the UK and Ireland, 1920–1938," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 272-286.
    2. Mitchener, Kris & Trebesch, Christoph, 2021. "Sovereign Debt in the 21st Century: Looking Backward, Looking Forward," CEPR Discussion Papers 15935, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Stephanie Collet & Kim Oosterlinck, 2019. "Denouncing Odious Debts," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 205-223, November.
    4. Tobias A. Jopp, 2014. "How did the capital market evaluate Germany’s prospects for winning World War I? Evidence from the Amsterdam market for government bonds," Working Papers 0052, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    5. Reinhart, Carmen & Trebesch, Christoph, 2014. "A Distant Mirror of Debt, Default, and Relief," CEPR Discussion Papers 10195, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Alexander Opitz, 2018. "“Comrades, Let's March!”.† The Revolution of 1905 and its impact on financial markets," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 22(1), pages 28-52.
    7. Marc Flandreau, Kim Oosterlinck, 2011. "Was the Emergence of the International Gold Standard Expected? Melodramatic Evidence from Indian Government Securities," IHEID Working Papers 01-2011, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    8. McLaughlin, Eoin & Foley-Fisher, Nathan, 2013. "Irish Land Bonds: 1891-1938," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-109, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    9. Flandreau, Marc & Oosterlinck, Kim, 2012. "Was the emergence of the international gold standard expected? Evidence from Indian Government securities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(7), pages 649-669.
    10. Kim Oosterlinck, 2013. "Sovereign debt defaults: insights from history," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 29(4), pages 697-714, WINTER.
    11. Eric Monnet, 2024. "Interest Rates," Springer Books, in: Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert (ed.), Handbook of Cliometrics, edition 3, pages 1531-1549, Springer.
    12. Dasgupta, Aditya & Ziblatt, Daniel, 2021. "Capital Meets Democracy: The Impact of Franchise Extension on Sovereign Bond Markets," SocArXiv s2pqn, Center for Open Science.
    13. Christiaan Bochove, 2014. "External debt and commitment mechanisms: Danish borrowing in Holland, 1763–1825," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(3), pages 652-677, August.
    14. Papadia, Andrea, 2017. "Sovereign defaults during the Great Depression: the role of fiscal fragility," Economic History Working Papers 68943, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    15. Ibrahim Ari & Muammer Koc, 2018. "Sustainable Financing for Sustainable Development: Understanding the Interrelations between Public Investment and Sovereign Debt," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-25, October.
    16. Brown, William Jr. & Burdekin, Richard C.K. & Weidenmier, Marc D., 2006. "Volatility in an era of reduced uncertainty: Lessons from Pax Britannica," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 693-707, March.
    17. Stijn Claessens & M. Ayhan Kose, 2013. "Financial Crises: Explanations, Types and Implications," CAMA Working Papers 2013-06, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    18. Marc Flandreau & Juan H. Flores & Norbert Gaillard & Sebastián Nieto-Parra, 2010. "The End of Gatekeeping: Underwriters and the Quality of Sovereign Bond Markets, 1815–2007," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2009, pages 53-92, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Marc Flandreau, 2013. "Sovereign states, bondholders committees, and the London Stock Exchange in the nineteenth century (1827–68): new facts and old fictions," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 29(4), pages 668-696, WINTER.
    20. Timothy Besley & Hannes Mueller, 2012. "Estimating the Peace Dividend: The Impact of Violence on House Prices in Northern Ireland," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 810-833, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    State dissolution; sovereign default; Irish land bonds; Dublin Stock Exchange;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N23 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N24 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: 1913-
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hes:wpaper:0061. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Paul Sharp (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehessea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.