FinObservatory

Sovereign haircuts / SLV

El Salvador

6 concluded restructurings, between 1860 and 1946. The earliest default they settle began in 1828. The worst cost creditors 83.6% of the present value of their claim, in 1946. The longest gap between a default and its settlement was 32 years.

6
Restructurings
45.5%
Median present-value haircut
83.6%
Worst present-value haircut
3 of 6
Cut face value by zero
$788M
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.

020406080100186018991923193219361946Year the restructuring concluded
Present-value haircutFace-value reduction
DefaultSettledYears to settlePresent-value haircutFace-value reductionDebt treated (2020 $)Source
182818603268.5%65.0%$8MMeyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022)
18991899025.9%0.0%$95MMeyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022)
19211923212.0%0.0%$52MMeyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022)
19321932029.2%0.0%$246MMeyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022)
19351936161.8%25.0%$269MMeyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022)
19381946883.6%29.4%$117MMeyer, 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
SLV_1828-186018281860331
SLV_1899-18991899189911
SLV_1921-19231921192331
SLV_1932-19321932193211
SLV_1935-194619351946122

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 El Salvador 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