Sovereign haircuts / CHN
China
2 concluded restructurings, between 1937 and 1939. The earliest default they settle began in 1921. The worst cost creditors 100.0% of the present value of their claim, in 1939. The longest gap between a default and its settlement was 16 years.
Every restructuring
Two measures of the same deals, never combined. The present-value haircut discounts what creditors got against what they were owed; the face-value reduction counts only principal written off.
| Default | Settled | Years to settle | Present-value haircut | Face-value reduction | Debt treated (2020 $) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1921 | 1937 | 16 | 0.0% | 25.7% | $2.79B | Meyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022) |
| 1939 | 1939repudiated | 0 | 100.0% | 100.0% | $4.89B | Meyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022) |
Source: Meyer, Reinhart & Trebesch (2022), Sovereign Bonds since Waterloo | Cruces & Trebesch (2013), Sovereign Defaults: The Price of Haircuts | Asonuma & Trebesch (2016) Debt treated is the amount restructured, deflated to constant 2020 US dollars in the source file. A negative haircut means the new instruments were worth more than the old claim. Methodology
Default spells
| Spell | From | To | Years | Restructurings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CHN_1921-1937 | 1921 | 1937 | 17 | 1 |
| CHN_1939-1939 | 1939 | 1939 | 1 | 1 |
Source: Meyer, Reinhart & Trebesch (2022), Sovereign Bonds since Waterloo | Cruces & Trebesch (2013), Sovereign Defaults: The Price of Haircuts | Asonuma & Trebesch (2016) Duration counts both endpoints. The spells table also carries a cumulative-haircut column; it is not published here because it does not reconcile with the per-episode haircuts, see the methodology. Methodology
Debt still in default
$420K across 1 creditor class in 2024. A haircut can only be measured once a restructuring concludes, so any of this that is still being negotiated is by construction absent from the tables above.
| Creditor class | In default, 2024 |
|---|---|
| Other private creditors | $420K |
Source: Bank of Canada-Bank of England Sovereign Default Database (CRAG) Bank of Canada terms (attribution). Includes domestic arrears, so it is not comparable with the debt-treated column above. Methodology