As a part of its restructuring of debt, the Greek government has decided to issue GDP-linked securities:
Each participating holder will also receive detachable GDP-linked Securities of the Republic with a notional amount equal to the face amount of the New Bonds of the Republic issued to that participating holder. The GDP-linked Securities will provide for annual payments beginning in 2015 of an amount of up to 1% of their notional amount in the event the Republic’s nominal GDP exceeds a defined threshold and the Republic has positive GDP growth in real terms in excess of specified targets.
The payout on these securities goes up and down with the country’s ability to pay. Yale professor Robert Shiller has been advocating this type of financing for a while, including in the most recent issue of the Harvard Business Review. A small number of countries have tried this before. The recent case of Argentina is notable since its GDP-linked bonds have paid off handsomely.
What about the U.S.? Could GDP-linked bonds be helpful in managing this country’s debt burden? That’s the case the advocates are making. Although the idea isn’t yet mainstream, it has at least made an appearance deep in the slide deck delivered by the Treasury’s Office of Debt Management to the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee last year.
Not everyone is enthusiastic about the idea.
