M-RCBG Senior Fellow-Led Study Group: David Grigorian
Wednesday, February 5, 4:30 B-L-4 (Belfer Building, L-level, Room 4)
Sovereign debt restructurings have become common tools for reducing indebted countries' debt burden and achieving debt sustainability. This is often necessary to free up budgetary resources to be spent on social priorities and to reduce the cost of credit available to the private sector. However, as common as sovereign debt restructurings have become, they are multifaceted undertakings, with several (groups of) stakeholders, that often take years to complete and put economic activity in the debtor country effectively on hold. Recent shifts in the composition of debt toward external bilateral and domestic debt in many low- and middle-income countries have made matters even more complicated.
The study group will discuss the main inputs used for the decision of whether or not to restructure sovereign debt and what specific types of debt to include in the restructuring perimeter. It will focus of concepts such as debt sustainability, fiscal savings from restructuring, economic costs of restructuring, financial stability implications of restructuring, and how these concepts should influence policymakers' decision to restructure or not to restructure.
Suggested reading:
International Monetary Fund, 2021. “,” IMF Policy Paper, December.
Grigorian, David A., 2023. “,” IMF Working Paper 23/24, February.
This study group / discussion is open to all HUID holders. Registration is not necessary.
M-RCBG welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs. To request accommodations or ask questions about access provided, please email: mrcbg@hks.harvard.edu
David Grigorian has had a successful career at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, DC, having worked on some of the most visible and impactful IMF programs of the past two decades. Throughout his tenure at Monetary and Capital Markets Department, Dr. Grigorian has provided technical assistance advice to governments in a variety of emerging market and advanced countries on issues of sovereign debt restructuring, debt market development, and financial crisis management. For his role in helping the authorities of Jamaica restructure their sovereign debt in 2010, Dr. Grigorian received an Outstanding Effort Award from the IMF’s Managing Director. During 2016-18, Dr. Grigorian was in Asia Pacific Department, where he led the IMF mission to Bhutan and conducted oversight of financial sector in Singapore and Malaysia. In his previous position as the desk economist on Iraq, he helped the country authorities prepare the federal budgets for 2007-09 under occupation and complete two back-to-back Stand-By Arrangements that led to the world’s largest sovereign debt relief ever provided by the Paris Club. Prior to joining the IMF in 2001, Dr. Grigorian worked at the World Bank, where he managed banking sector restructuring projects in Central Asia. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland at College Park and has published extensively in refereed economic journals on a wide range of issues including sovereign debt, banking and capital markets, growth and institutions, remittances, and fiscal performance, and his research is cited widely. Dr. Grigorian also co-founded and led Policy Forum Armenia, a virtual anti-corruption think-tank uniting nearly 50 researchers and public policy professionals with interest in Armenia’s development. As an M-RCBG Senior Fellow, he will be focusing on sovereign debt restructuring issues. His faculty sponsor is Carmen Reinhart, Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System at Harvard Kennedy School. Email: dgrigorian@hks.harvard.edu
This study group / discussion is open to all. Registration is not necessary.
M-RCBG welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs. To request accommodations or ask questions about access provided, please email: mrcbg@hks.harvard.edu