Sovereign Debt, Austerity, and Regime Change The Case of Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania
Historically, high sovereign debt and austerity policies have coincided with regime-changing popular uprisings. Nicolae Ceausescu’s Romania was no exception. Why, when faced with a sovereign debt crisis in the 1980s, did his regime choose to pay its foreign debt as early as possible, at the cost of economic recession and dramatically compressed consumption? How did these choices relate to the regime’s failure to survive the end of the decade?
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