Pricing the implicit contracts in the Paris Club debt buybacks

Manas, Arnaud and Daniel, Laurent (2007): Pricing the implicit contracts in the Paris Club debt buybacks.

Abstract

In 2005, more than 20 billion dollars were bought back by Paris Club debtors: Russia USD 15 billion Poland USD 5.4 billion and Peru USD 1.5 billion. During the first half of 2006, more than USD 30 billion in buybacks was announced: Russia USD 22 billion, Algeria USD 8 billion dollars, Brazil USD 1.5 billion. The buybacks consisted of the prepayment of debts at par with no penalties. These transactions were carried out at a discount of more than 20% compared to their net present value. The total loss incurred by creditors in the three buybacks is estimated at more than USD 10 billion. This raises the question as to why the Paris Club creditors agreed to the buybacks voluntarily. It appears that these buybacks are the result of the exercise of specific contracts previously agreed with the debtors in the 1990s, without receiving any compensation for this and without assessing the consequences. These implicit contracts make it possible to formalise the respective interests for creditors and debtors. Their pricing requires the use of financial mathematics tools (derivatives) and stochastic models for interest rates (Vasicek), but applied in the Paris Club framework.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: buyback; Paris Club; par value; Vasicek model; creditor cartel
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F3 - International Finance > F34 - International Lending and Debt Problems; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory > C72 - Noncooperative Games

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