Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/233963 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers No. 181010
Publisher: 
Romanian Academy, National Institute for Economic Research, Bucharest
Abstract: 
Based on more recent research and evidence, including declassified information regarding the communist period in Romania, the study focuses on examining the 1980s foreign debt crisis context, its determinants and consequences, the impact of internal and external factors, intending to provide an image closer to reality of this dramatic episode. The global economy faced a severe economic and financial crisis at the beginning of the 1980s, when more than 30 developing countries entered default or restructuring on the sovereign debt. In the case of Romania, the impact of the foreign debt crisis triggered in 1981-1982 proved to be extremely hard, worsened by the overlap between the internal vulnerabilities accumulated in previous decades and the external shock coming from the major changes in the global economic, financial and geopolitical context at the end of 1979. The FED monetary policy at that time has led to the explosive rise in interest rates of the outstanding loans contracted from international commercial banks, to which Romania was highly indebted. The decision of simple-minded Ceausescu to liquidate the foreign debt and other serious errors concerning the crisis management had a destructive impact on the Romanian economy, which degenerated in a system crisis ended with its implosion in December 1989. Some consequences of the foreign debt crisis were felt also afterwards, slowing down significantly the pace of Romania's transition to the market economy.
Subjects: 
foreign debt crisis
oil crisis shocks
IMF
FED monetary policy
interest rates
sovereign debt restructuring
Romania
JEL: 
B22
E44
E62
F34
H63
N44
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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