Debt is the Achilles’ heel of modern capitalism as Nobel-prize winning economist James Tobin put it. And there has never been more debt than today. The debts of households, corporations and the government stand at record highs. Are these debts sustainable? Will overhanging debt burdens weigh on growth in the coming decade? What role can debt restructuring play to build a more inclusive economy for the future? The conference brings together a new generation of economic thinkers, sociologists, activists, and historians to discuss the prospects, challenges and potential effects of debt cancellation and restructuring.

Across six newly commissioned paper from leading experts in the field, the conference will take stock of the evolving academic views on debt reorganization and its costs and benefits and connect these new insights to the policy debate. We will discuss what promise debt restructuring holds to stabilize the economy in a high-debt world, and how concerns of economic justice, innovation, and efficiency can be combined.

February 3

• 1:00pm - Welcome Address
  • Rob Johnson, INET President
  • Richard Vague, Secretary of Banking and Securities, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
  • Moritz Schularick, INET Fellow

• 1:30pm - Paper 1: The History and Politics of Federal Household Credit Policy in the United States
  • Presenter
    • Chloe Thurston, Northwestern University
  • Discussant
    • Louis Hyman, Cornell University

• 2:30pm - Paper 2: From Debt Cancellation to Debtors Unions: Household Debt, Racial Capitalism, and Collective Power
  • Presenter
    • Hannah Appel, UCLA
  • Discussant
    • Olivia Schwob

• 3:30pm - Paper 3: The Costs and Benefits of Household Debt Relief
  • Presenter
    • Sasha Indarte, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
  • Discussant
    • Natalie Cox, Princeton University

February 4

• 9:00am - Paper 4: The Macroeconomics of Household Debt Relief
  • Presenters
    • Adrien Auclert, Stanford University
    • Kurt Mitman, IIES
  • Discussant
    • Corina Boar, New York University

• 10:00am - The Challenge of American’s Consumer Debts
  • Speakers
    • Mark McArdle, Assistant Director, Mortgage Markets, CFPB
    • David Uejio, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at the Department of Housing and Urban Development; Former Acting Director, CFPB
    • Rebecca Steele, CEO of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling
    • Andrew Ross, Professor at New York University
  • Moderator
    • Richard Vague, Secretary of Banking and Securities, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

• 11:15am - Break

• 11:30am - Paper 5: Business Bankruptcy and its Economic Effects
  • Presenters
    • Yueran Ma, University of Chicago
    • Martin Kornejew, University of Bonn
  • Discussant
    • Edith Hotchkiss, Boston College

• 12:30pm - Paper 6: External Sovereign Debt Restructurings and Economic Consequences: What Do We Know
  • Presenters
    • Tamon Asonuma, IMF
    • Michael Papaioannou, IMF
  • Discussant
    • Diego Perez, New York University
• 1:30pm - Closing Remarks
  • Rana Foroohar, Global Business Columnist and an Associate Editor at the Financial Times