[FONT="]Sunny. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. It is very interesting. We were not aware of this paper on the Expert Group on Mortgage Arrears. I have extracted key points as I see them as a form of summary of the paper.
Executive Summary
The historically high levels of household debt in many countries currently facing financial crisis have heightened demands for government intervention. If unaddressed, household debt distress could be a drain on the economy and lead to social unrest. Well-designed and wellexecuted
government intervention may be more efficient than leaving debt restructuring to the marketplace and standard court-based resolution tools alone. This note assesses the case for government intervention in household debt restructuring. It proposes, in addition to targeted legal reform, a template for a government-supported household debt restructuring program designed to reverse nonperforming loans, which could be adapted to individual country circumstances.
Selected extracts
While governments with fiscal space may decide to pursue restructuring[/FONT][FONT="]policies on the basis of social considerations, the design of such debt restructuring programs should be based on sound economic principles[/FONT]
[FONT="]Essentially, this can be seen as a multiple equilibria situation: in one equilibrium, debt overhang is resolved more rapidly, leading to a stabilization of house prices and resumption of growth; in the other, debt overhang lingers, resulting in further declines in house prices and contributing to a worsening of the recession.[/FONT]
[FONT="]When government bank recapitalization programs are also envisaged, authorities need to consider any overlap between the costs of debt restructuring and the costs of bank recapitalization when assessing the impact of government intervention on public debt.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Under the first approach, the government establishes the legal and institutional frameworkthat supports case-by-case restructuring.[/FONT]
[FONT="]the wealth destruction and extreme liquidity pressures thatcan arise in systemic crises can be exacerbated by wide-scale resort to credit enforcement measures.[/FONT]
[FONT="]It is therefore important that an effective court-supervised insolvency framework be in place for individual debtors, providing for multi-creditor[/FONT]
[FONT="]restructuring through the following key legal features:
(i) an automatic stay on creditor enforcement and debtor payments during the insolvency proceedings;
(ii) when the debt is secured, but the market value of the collateral (including the value of the household property securing a mortgage) is below the value of the loan, the court has the power to restructure the amount of the deficiency as unsecured debt;
(iii) the modification of loan terms should take into[/FONT][FONT="]account the payment capacity of the debtor; and
(iv) a “fresh start” through discharge of financially responsible debtors from the liability for unsustainable debts at the end of the liquidation or rehabilitation period.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Case-by-case debt renegotiations between a creditor and debtor can result in an adjustment in loans on a voluntary basis to reduce debt payments through (i) interest rate reductions, (ii) principal amount reductions, and/or (iii) maturity extensions[/FONT]
[FONT="]A second approach involves the establishment of a government-sponsored debt restructuring program that involves some form of financial support.[/FONT]
[FONT="]the government can provide direct support to the households through some[/FONT][FONT="]form of subsidy, such as debt forgiveness, interest or exchange rate subsidies, or tax incentives [/FONT]
[FONT="]comprehensive debt restructuring programs risk being too generous by offering restructuring to borrowers that without debt restructuring would have been able and willing to make payments on their debt.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Ideally, debt restructuring programs should be designed such that they lead to a “separating equilibrium” in which only borrowers that are unable to repay their debt take advantage of the program. The degree of government intervention depends on the scale of the problem, the ability of debtors and creditors to absorb losses, and the fiscal space of the government.[/FONT]
[FONT="]ored debt restructuring program should help restore the viability of[/FONT][FONT="]individual borrowers, while minimizing the direct fiscal cost, reducing the risk of bank failures, and establishing the basis for the recovery of the real sector. These multiple goals may not be fully compatible and policy choices may need to be made as to where the balance is struck. [/FONT]
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[FONT="]The design of a debt restructuring program should incorporate a number of basic features:[/FONT]
• [FONT="]Objective: [/FONT][FONT="]Turn troubled loans into performing loans, while mitigating the moral hazard created by offering debtors the opportunity to not repay on the loan’s original terms. The program could be directed to reduce debt service requirements of certain borrowers that have experienced increases in their scheduled loan repayments as a result of adverse interest rate or foreign exchange rate shocks, or to address the build-up of a substantialamount of nonperforming loans.[/FONT]
• [FONT="]Scope: [/FONT][FONT="]The program should, where feasible, be selective and target borrowers who cannot meet their debt service obligations but whose ability to service their debt is likely to be restored upon restructuring. The restructuring program could be designed to compensate the targeted group of borrowers either partially or in full—but in any case at a sufficient level to restore sustainable debt levels and servicing capacity of borrowers. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Defining criteria for such selectivity and reliably applying the criteria could be a major challenge, especially where data is unreliable and political or social considerations are pressing factors. In cases where public funding is used, it would need to be sufficient to cover each qualifying participant. Conversely, the scope of the program would be subject to the public funding envelope.[/FONT]
• [FONT="]Proportionality: [/FONT][FONT="]The degree of government intervention in the program should depend on the scale of the problem, the capacity of creditors and debtors to absorb losses, and on 8 These basic features are designed on the model of a single (main) creditor for each household debtor and thus does not address creditor coordination and inter-creditor equity issues that would arise in countries where multiple creditors of household debtors are prevalent.[/FONT][FONT="]the fiscal space of the government. Intervention should not impede on government debt sustainability and burden sharing between creditors and debtors should depend on their ability to absorb losses.[/FONT]
• [FONT="]Participation: [/FONT][FONT="]Participation should be on a voluntary basis. Banks should be induced, not forced, to restructure their debts with borrowers.9 Compulsory restructuring, outside of the court-supervised insolvency process will give rise to legal challenges and should be avoided.[/FONT]
• [FONT="]Simplicity: [/FONT][FONT="]Given the large number of loans involved in household debt restructuring, design should be based on simple rules and verifiable information to speed up restructuring and reduce the potential for abuse. These rules should be based on analysis of the structure of the banks’ household loan portfolios, and, where it is not available already, banks will need to share with the government the necessary information to conduct such analysis should public funds be used to support the program.[/FONT]
• [FONT="]Transparency and accountability: [/FONT][FONT="]The program should include mechanisms that allow the authorities to monitor the progress in restructuring to ensure the accountability of the program participants, and to make adjustments to the program if necessary. Mechanisms such as ongoing reporting and audit requirements are especially important if public funds are used, as they would help safeguard the integrity of the program and the most effective[/FONT][FONT="]use of taxpayers’ money.[/FONT]
[FONT="]IV. IMPLEMENTING A GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED DEBT RESTRUCTURING PROGRAM[/FONT]
[FONT="]To avoid multiple rounds of debt restructuring, governmentsponsored[/FONT][FONT="]debt restructuring programs should generally not be introduced before macroeconomic policies have stabilized the economy and a bank recapitalization program has been put in place[/FONT]
[FONT="] design should mitigate such moral hazard and lead to a “separating equilibrium” in which only borrowers that are unable to repay their debt take advantage of the program.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Government incentives may be on occasion warranted to overcome obstacles to[/FONT][FONT="]borrowers seeking restructuring, e.g., in cases of significant negative equity, where it may be individually efficient for borrowers to walk away from their mortgages, but costly to the economy as a whole.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Administrative measures as last resort. [/FONT] [FONT="]If the size of the debt problem is overwhelming and other tools, including government financial support, are ineffective, administrative measures may become a last resort. Such measures include the imposition of a standard way of modifying distressed loans (possibly differentiated according to local market conditions) and a payment[/FONT][FONT="]moratorium or foreclosure ban on distressed loans. A debt payment moratorium is particularly problematic because it interferes with contracts, negatively impacting the market’s perception of the quality of contract enforcement going forward, and would not address underlying debt overhang problems. Similarly, the imposition of an administrative ban on foreclosures does not solve the underlying debt overhang problems and could generate incentives to default by[/FONT][FONT="]reducing the associated penalty, thereby exacerbating spillover effects on bank balance sheets.[/FONT]