Anna Gelpern is a Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and International Finance at Georgetown Law and a nonresident senior fellow at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics. She has published research on government debt, contracts, and regulation of financial institutions and markets. She has co-authored a law textbook on International Finance, and has contributed to international initiatives on financial reform and government debt. She co-directs the Sovereign Debt Forum, a collaboration among Georgetown Law’s Institute of International Economic Law and academic institutions in the United States and Europe, dedicated to cutting edge research and capacity building in sovereign debt management. Before coming to Georgetown, she held full-time appointments at the American University Washington College of Law, Rutgers School of Law-Newark and Rutgers University Division of Global Affairs. She has held visiting appointments at Harvard and Penn law schools. Between 1996 and 2002, Professor Gelpern served in legal and policy positions at the U.S. Treasury Department. Earlier she practiced with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen &Hamilton in New York and London. Professor Gelpern has taught International Finance, Contracts, Commercial Law, Financial Institutions and International Law. She earned an A.B. from Princeton University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Scholarship

Selected Contributions to Other Publications

Anna Gelpern, A Costly Cost Test, JOTWELL, Apr. 3, 2025 (reviewing Jeremy C. Kress, "Least-Cost" Resolution, 43 Yale J. on Reg. __ (forthcoming, 2026)). [WWW]
Anna Gelpern, Omar Haddad, Sebastian Horn, Paulina Kintzinger, Bradley C. Parks & Christoph Trebesch, How China Collateralizes (AidData at William & Mary, Working Paper #136, June 25, 2025). [WWW]
Anna Gelpern, Omar Haddad, Sebastian Horn, Paulina Kintzinger, Bradley C. Parks & Christoph Trebesch, How China Lends 2.0: Introducing an Extended Dataset of 371 Debt Contracts (AidData at William & Mary, Policy Brief, June 25, 2025). [WWW]

Book Chapters & Collected Works

Anna Gelpern, Boilerplate Against Bailouts and the Regulatory Ride Fallacy, in Hidden Fallacies in Corporate Law and Financial Regulation: Reframing the Mainstream Narratives 253-289 (Alexandra Andhov, Claire A. Hill & Saule T. Omarova eds., London: Bloomsbury Publishing 2024). [BOOK]
Anna Gelpern, Sovereign Debt Restructuring: In Need of a New Approach, in Dealing with Debt: Less Risk for More Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean 223-253 (Andrew Powell & Oscar Mauricio Valencia eds., Wash., D.C.: Inter-American Development Bank 2023). [WWW]