MauricioDrelichman and Hans‐JoachimVoth, Lending to the borrower from hell: debt, taxes, and default in the age of Philip II (Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014. Pp. xiii + 310. 36 figs. 29 tabs. ISBN 9780691151496 Hbk. £24.95)
本书基于438份短期贷款合同数据，结合现代经济理论和计量方法，分析菲利普二世与热那亚债权人之间的债务关系，发现其财政可持续、违约可归因于意外冲击，并探讨了历史对现代主权债务的启示。
To contemporaries, Philip II of Spain was the ruler of an 'empire on which the sun never sets'.Today he may be best known for defaulting on his debts in 1557, 1560, 1575, and again in 1596.This study corrects that picture through an examination of the relationship between Philip and his international creditors, mostly Genoese, based on the investigation of 438 asiento contracts issued between 1566 and 1600.Asientos were short-term loans, often including fund transfers or foreign exchange, and the contracts set out when payments and repayments would be made, as well as including clauses covering various contingencies.The analysis of this dataset is informed by modern economic theory and employs econometric techniques; it is economic history with the emphasis very much on the former.The first three chapters establish the key themes, the historical background, and the fiscal resources of the Spanish Empire-notably the annual shipments of silver from its American colonies on which the repayment of asientos was often assigned.The six following chapters contain the analytical heart of the book.Chapter 4 combines the asientos dataset with existing material on juros (long-term debt) to demonstrate that Philip's finances were in fact sustainable.Chapter 5 considers why Philip repaid his creditors at all, given his sovereign status, and identifies the market power and tight-knit network of the 'Genoese Coalition' (p.160) as key factors.Chapter 6 calculates ex ante expected returns from the cash flows specified in the asiento contracts.Even allowing for costs and the restructuring of contracts after default, lenders could expect to earn a substantial premium over the juro rate (11.6 per cent compared to 7.14 per cent).Chapter 7 examines the contingent clauses contained in the contracts as a form of risk sharing covering foreseeable situations.The defaults themselves, by contrast, were caused by unexpected shocks such as military conflict or a delay in the arrival of the silver fleets; that is, they were excusable, not opportunistic, and, importantly, occurred in 'verifiably bad states of the world' (p.231).The authors do not use this terminology but, according to the threefold categorization of Michael Tomz (Reputation and international co-operation: sovereign debt across three centuries, 2007), Philip was a 'fairweather' borrower rather than a lemon or a stalwart.Finally, chapter 8 concludes that this access to international finance funded by American silver may have been a 'resource curse' (p.263) since it reduced the incentives for Spanish rulers to challenge local interests in order to strengthen long-run state capacity.Throughout the book, the authors relate their research to current economic concerns.Can policy-makers today learn any lessons from sixteenth-century practice?Maybe.Philip's defaults were resolved more quickly and involved smaller haircuts than modern cases.The asientos provide an example of the successful implementation of state-contingent debt, something with which modern states have struggled, while the syndicated lending carried out by the Genoese can be contrasted with the failings of securitization in the 2000s.These are all valuable thought experiments, even if it is difficult to make any direct comparisons between 1565 and 2015.For instance, it is argued that these arrangements were successful in part because the Genoese formed a closely linked network that enjoyed tremendous market power-even if such a creditors' coalition were possible today, it is far from clear that it would be desirable.Further, while this relationship served the interest of Philip and the Genoese, it may not have benefited his subjects or Spain in the long run, as is discussed in chapter 8.There are a few minor errors: the Sir John Simon referred to as a 'British field officer' (p.138 n. 7) was in fact the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, while specification (5) in table 25 (p.236) should presumably read 1575 rather than 1575.More fundamentally, the substantive content of the six analytical chapters are already available in a series of