The first recorded instance of a government debt default occurred in Greece. In the fourth century BC, 10 members of the Attic Maritime Association defaulted on loans from the Delos temple. These city-states have had many followers. Six European countries defaulted on external debt between 1300 and 1800 – some of them several times – according to Credit Suisse. Since then, it is hard to keep count. Yet the predominant thinking in policy circles now is that sovereign default in an advanced economy, as an International Monetary Fund report puts it, is “unnecessary, undesirable and unlikely”.
歷史上有記錄的第一個政府債務違約的事例就出現在希臘。公元前4世紀，阿提卡海洋聯盟(Attic Maritime Association)的10個城邦未能償還提洛神廟(Delos temple)的借款。這些城邦擁有衆多的追隨者。根據瑞信(Credit Suisse)的資料，從1300年到1800年，共有6個歐洲國家拖欠過外債（其中一些國家不止一次）。自那以後，就很難進行確切的統計了。然而，正如國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)一份報告所指出的那樣，目前政策圈子中的主導思想是，發達經濟體的主權違約是「不必要、不受歡迎和不太可能的」。