Usual suspects

By A.P. and L.P.

Latin American countries are the most likely to default

ON JULY 30th Argentina defaulted for the second time in 13 years, and for the eighth time in its history. That makes it one of the world's most serial sovereign defaulters, though not the most frequent reoffender. Ecuador and Venezuela have both reneged on their debts ten times; four other countries have defaulted nine times in total, according to data from Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, two experts on sovereign debt. Nine of the top ten defaulters are from Latin America, although many have shown no trace of the debt-default disease for decades. That, alas, is plainly not the case for Argentina.