1. catdynamics
  2. inadvertent generosity

inadvertent generosity

By catdynamics on November 8, 2007.

there is an interesting side effect of the dollar's recent pronounced decline

a lot of countries, especially smaller, poorer countries, finance their public debt in dollar bonds - the loan is in dollars, and so is the repayment, but the funds to make the payment ultimately come out of local revenue

so, in driving down the US dollar, a lot of countries have an opportunity to write off a significant fraction of their public debt, eg by converting to euro bonds - if the central banks can pull it off, get refinancing, and if they time it right (incorrect timing just reinflates the debt in local currency)
this can also drive positive feedback, as countries get non-US credit and use it to pay off dollar debt - if you held a dollar bond now, and someone offered to pay it off and give you some rapidly appreciating euros (or loonies or yen etc), there is some incentive to take it while the going is good...

this is uncommonly generous

I eagerly await explanations of how I completely misunderstand international bond markets...
my understanding of the process goes back to the decades when Iceland played this game and did it badly

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And almost all countries that tried to switch from dollar to euro over the past decade got bombed by the US military - wonder why?

Well, to start with the bonds would have to be callable. If they were issued without any contractual provision allowing the issuer to terminate them early, the holders can just turn down any such offer (in the Argentinian case a few years back the government defaulted on its coupon payments, so a renegotiation was forced under duress).

Why would they? Maybe because they know that currency markets tend to overshoot, think that the dollar decline is getting out of hand, that the euro is getting way overvalued, and that if they were to switch now they would be selling at or near the bottom. Works both ways.