Rolf Strauch at DebtCon2

In early 2016, Anna Gelpern (Georgetown Law) and Mitu Gulati (Duke Law) organised an interdisciplinary meeting to discuss issues related to sovereign debt and sovereign debt crises. This was the first time that academics and practitioners working on debt-related issues could meet and discuss how they approach the sovereign debt problematique from their different disciplinary perspectives. The event was a great success and it was decided to transform it into an annual series, and the Graduate Institute’s Centre for Finance and Development volunteered to organise the first event in Geneva.

Sovereign debt is at the center of the policy debate in both advanced and emerging economies and academic research in sovereign debt has flourished in recent years. However, knowledge is often built and disseminated within disciplinary academic silos. Scholars in anthropology, economics, finance, history, law, political science, and sociology approach the same urgent policy problems with different questions and methods. Law, market, and policy practitioners have yet more different perspectives on sovereign debt. The goal in organising this annual interdisciplinary conference is to join the conversation across disciplinary and institutional lines. Bringing all these perspectives together is not easy but the effort is worthwhile because more relevant, institutionally-grounded scholarship will lead to policies informed by cutting-edge research, and ultimately - we must hope - fewer crises and less human suffering.

The two-day conference will take place at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, on 5-6 October 2017. The main organisers are the Graduate Institute’s Centre for Finance and Development in cooperation with the University of Geneva’s Department of History, Economics and Society, and Georgetown University Law Centre.