three options: (1) to exchange loans for floating-rate
bonds with collateral at a 35% discount; (2) to exchange
loans for bonds with the same par value but
receiving a lower, fixed interest rate; or (3) to lend new
money to finance Mexican interest payments, keeping
nominal value of the debt they were owed intact. In
1990, some 49% of the banks exchanged $22 billion in
debt for lower-interest, fixed-rate bonds, and 41% exchanged
$20 billion in debt for the discounted floating-rate
bonds. This constituted Mexico’s creditor
banks’ “revealed preferences” from among the options.
Provided that Mexico continued to service the reduced
debt successfully, the bonds on deposit in Washington as
collateral would earn interest that Mexico received,
which could be used for debt reduction or investment.
From the banks’ point of view, the trade-off involved giving
up higher-yielding but higher-risk debt for loweryielding
but lower-risk debt. Mexican debt was 63%
of GDP in 1983 but fell to 32% by 1993 and 23% in 2003.
There was one major crisis along the way. In 1994,
the government attempted to carry out a small devaluation
of the peso. But the market saw this step as too
little too late given the large current account deficit
and concluded that the action was a prelude to much
larger devaluations in the near future. Speculators,