The Long Shadow of Default

The sovereign debt literature has somehow managed to overlook one of the biggest, most enduring debt defaults on record, involving one of the world’s richest democracies. We’re talking about the United Kingdom’s failure to pay its First World War debts owed to the United States. We talk with David Gill (University of Nottingham) about his wonderful new book, The Long Shadow of Default (Yale University Press), which focuses on the origins and consequences of this largely overlooked episode. We talk about the consequences of default for the U.K. in financial markets (basically none), the consequences for diplomatic relations between the U.K. and U.S. (much more significant), and on how this episode shapes national policies regarding sovereign debt to this day.

Producer: Leanna Doty