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Sovereign Default of Iceland: Voting Outcomes of the Referenda 2010 and 2011 Conducted for the Approval of the Icesave Bill

This paper reports the various statistics collected in reference to the referenda held in Iceland in 2010 and subsequently in 2011 for the settlement of the Ice save dispute with United Kingdom and Netherlands. With Iceland reeling from the financial crisis of 2008 and the crash of its privatized banking sector, the country faced enormous foreign debt in comparison to its foreign currency reserves. Pertaining to passing on the losses of the banks onto creditors but safeguarding the domestic banking led to extreme financing needs for the country and austerity measures kicked in. Looking towards International Monetary Fund and the neighboring Nordic countries for lending, the Ice save bill became the pivot to access the international capital markets. This paper analyzes the outcomes of the referendum held in 2010 and then again in 2011 after being rejected by an astounding majority earlier on. While many of the published works have focused on the crisis of Iceland as well as analyzed the legal structure of the Ice save bill which was presented in 2009 and subsequently, amended, the literature has created a lacunae in understanding the motivations of the same populace and two widely different outcomes on the same issue within a timeframe of a year. This paper attempts to narrow down the population regionally and understand the demographics of the people who changed their decisions over the two referenda and the reasons for the change. The paper tries to support the outcomes via help of available statistics thereby, forming a bridge between economics and behavioral decision-making.