FinObservatory

Sovereign haircuts / GTM

Guatemala

6 concluded restructurings, between 1856 and 1936. The earliest default they settle began in 1828. The worst cost creditors 56.6% of the present value of their claim, in 1856. The longest gap between a default and its settlement was 28 years.

6
Restructurings
42.7%
Median present-value haircut
56.6%
Worst present-value haircut
2 of 6
Cut face value by zero
$690M
Debt treated (2020 $)

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.

020406080100185618881895189819131936Year the restructuring concluded
Present-value haircutFace-value reduction
DefaultSettledYears to settlePresent-value haircutFace-value reductionDebt treated (2020 $)Source
182818562856.6%43.8%$19MMeyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022)
187618881255.8%11.6%$110MMeyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022)
18941895142.1%25.0%$119MMeyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022)
18981898021.9%0.0%$201MMeyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022)
189919131420.9%0.0%$144MMeyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022)
19321936443.4%12.1%$98MMeyer, 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

SpellFromToYearsRestructurings
GTM_1828-185618281856291
GTM_1876-188818761888131
GTM_1894-18951894189521
GTM_1898-191318981913162
GTM_1932-19361932193651

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

The Bank of Canada-Bank of England default database records no debt in default for Guatemala in its latest year.

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

Methodology, the measures, and what this data cannot tell you