Book contents
- When Nations Can’t Default
- Studies in Macroeconomic History
- When Nations Can’t Default
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Data and Replication
- 1 Introduction
- 2 A Framework for War Reparations
- 3 Sovereign Debt
- 4 Napoleonic Wars Reparations
- 5 Haiti Indemnity and Sovereign Debt
- 6 Franco-Prussian War Indemnities
- 7 Smaller Nineteenth-Century War Reparations
- 8 German World War I Reparations
- 9 Russian and Bulgarian World War I Reparations
- 10 World War II Reparations to the Soviet Bloc
- 11 World War II Reparations to the Allies
- 12 Iraq Gulf War Reparations
- 13 When Nations Can’t Default
- Appendix: Letter to Creditor Committees
- References
- Index
4 - Napoleonic Wars Reparations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2023
- When Nations Can’t Default
- Studies in Macroeconomic History
- When Nations Can’t Default
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Data and Replication
- 1 Introduction
- 2 A Framework for War Reparations
- 3 Sovereign Debt
- 4 Napoleonic Wars Reparations
- 5 Haiti Indemnity and Sovereign Debt
- 6 Franco-Prussian War Indemnities
- 7 Smaller Nineteenth-Century War Reparations
- 8 German World War I Reparations
- 9 Russian and Bulgarian World War I Reparations
- 10 World War II Reparations to the Soviet Bloc
- 11 World War II Reparations to the Allies
- 12 Iraq Gulf War Reparations
- 13 When Nations Can’t Default
- Appendix: Letter to Creditor Committees
- References
- Index
Summary
Chapter 4 studies the Napoleonic Wars reparations. France lost the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, ending decades of revolution and counter-revolution. After Napoleons final defeat at Waterloo, France was forced to pay just under 2 billion francs in reparations, around a quarter of output in 1815, over the following five years. With French government revenues of around 700 million francs in 1816, the transfer represented almost three times the annual budget. That was a big transfer, even more so as France faced significant credit constraints because earlier defaults prevented it from tapping sovereign debt markets. Not until 1817 did France manage to borrow large amounts of money, paying back reparations with two years to spare. How did the country manage to pay the large reparations transfer? I argue that France benefited economically from a positive shock to its terms of trade as the war wound down. The French peacetime economy was structurally different in terms of its imports and exports, which had changed during many years of war and blockades.
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- Information
- When Nations Can't DefaultA History of War Reparations and Sovereign Debt, pp. 86 - 99Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023