A European perspective on public debt

Public debt in Europe has risen continuously over the last two decades. How is the transition to European Economic and Monetary Union, with the increasing economic interdependence between individual member states which it involves, likely to affect this situation? Which policy issues are of particular relevance in this setting?     

The external debt situation of the least developed countries

While the external debt of the least developed countries (LLDCs) is no threat to the international financial system, its adverse impact on the development efforts of many of these countries is severe. The following article examines their debt and economic situation and reviews major elements of the current international debt strategy with regard to their adequacy in bringing the LLDCs back to sustainable debt burdens and growth. The article was written while the author was working at the OECD. The views in the article are those of the author and do not reflect those of the World Bank or its affiliates or of the OECD.     

Development through debt: Rationalizing the costs of external borrowing

Mounting external indebtedness has become a major problem for many developing countries. This may be not least a result of the fact that economists and policy-makers have tended to emphasize the benefits to the recipient countries of external borrowing to the neglect of its costs.     

Effects of the realignment on LDCs

The Washinton Realignment aims at adjusting the distortions of exchange rates which have arisen during the past years. In doing so, new data have been set for the future. These data have been fixed by the industrial countries. The less developed countries (LDCs) are affected thereby without having had the possibility of exercising an influence on the agreement.     

关于地方政府负债审计中的若干问题探讨

地方政府债务是指地方政府作为债务人按约定的条件向债权人承担为或不为的义务,即由地方政府及其职能部门直接借入、提供担保和反担保、欠账等形式形成的,最终必须由地方政府承担偿还责任的债务.本文就地方性政府债务问题进行了探讨.     

关于地方政府负债审计中的若干问题探讨

地方政府债务是指地方政府作为债务人按约定的条件向债权人承担为或不为的义务,即由地方政府及其职能部门直接借入、提供担保和反担保、欠账等形式形成的,最终必须由地方政府承担偿还责任的债务.本文就地方性政府债务问题进行了探讨.     

Testing explosive behavior of public debt in OECD countries

This paper examines the beginning and end of potentially speculative explosive public debt patterns occurring in 29 major OECD countries. The method we use is most appropriate for practical implementation with a time series and delivers a consistent date-stamping strategy for the origination and termination of multiple explosive behaviors. Our results also test that most OECD countries, except for Israel, Luxembourg, and Turkey, have experienced periods of explosive public debt. The stationarity of public debt varies by country. Approximately two-thirds of the explosive periods occurred prior to 2012. Based on the scale, structure, and safety of government debt for dynamic monitoring and evaluation, governments can improve risk management measures.     

Indicator systems for the assessment of the external debt situation of developing countries

The foreign indebtedness of the Third World has been increasing rapidly over the past ten years. The volume of private and public borrowings expanded between the end of 1970 and the end of 1979 from $ 64 bn to $ 376 bn¹. This development has quickened the interest in methods for an assessment of the external debt situation of developing countries. Interested parties—commercial banks, international organizations, etc., and the borrowers themselves—are looking for criteria by reference to which they can monitor foreign indebtedness and ascertain in good time whether and when the foreign debt of a country is in danger of reaching “critical” dimensions. What view should be taken of the various criteria?     

The public debt,uncertainty, and government credibility

The paper deals with the effects of uncertainty and the level of public indebtedness on the behavior of citizen-taxpayers and their willingness to fully honor their previous commitments to make interest payments and debt repayments and thus on their credibility as debtors. A model is constructed in which exists a well-defined limit to the size of the public debt, even if the latter is not perceived as net wealth in the aggregate, thus excluding limits due to demand-side or “portfolio-balance” considerations. This limit has to do with the effects of the size of public indebtedness on the credibility of government as a debtor.     

Pecking order and debt capacity considerations for high-growth companies seeking financing

This paper examines incremental financing decisions within high-growth businesses. A large longitudinal dataset, free of survivorship bias, to cover financing events of high-growth businesses for up to 8 years is analyzed. The empirical evidence shows that profitable businesses prefer to finance investments with retained earnings, even if they have unused debt capacity. External equity is particularly important for unprofitable businesses with high debt levels, limited cash flows, high risk of failure or significant investments in intangible assets. These findings are consistent with the extended pecking order theory controlling for constraints imposed by debt capacity. It suggests that new equity issues are particularly important to allow high-growth businesses to grow beyond their debt capacity.     

在实践中对涉农资金管理的几点思考

在财政资金使用中,最容易出问题的是数额越来越大的专项资金.随着党的惠农政策的不断出台,涉农资金在专项资金中所占的数额将越来越大,涉农资金和农民的切身利益密切相关,如何管好用好这笔资金,在财政工作中就显得尤为重要了.     

New ways of financing LDCs

The forthcoming third plenary meeting of UNCTAD in Santiago will primarily consider how the less developed countries (LDCs) can be integrated more effectively into the world economic system. To solve the problem of development of the so-called “Third World” it is considered essential to open up new financial resources for the LDCs.     

Crisis costs and debtor discipline: the efficacy of public policy in sovereign debt crises

Recent debate on the reform of the international financial architecture has highlighted the potentially important role of the official sector in crisis management. We examine how such public intervention in sovereign debt crises affects efficiency, ex ante and ex post. Our results shed light on the scale of capital inflows and the implications for debtor country output of such a regime. The efficacy of measures such as officially sanctioned stays on creditor litigation depend critically on the quality of public sector surveillance and the size of the costs of sovereign debt crises.     

Forms of exports for LDCs

Development aid of the industrialized nations has taken as its focal point the promotion of nontraditional exports by LDCs. An important part of this endeavour is the spreading of enlightenment among LDCs about the possibility of finding marketing outlets for their direct and indirect exports.     

External financing problems of LDCs

In INTERECONOMICS No. 3, 1972, Dr Erhard Eppler, Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation, expressed the view that the developing countries at UNCTAD III would not be content with mere benevolent declarations by the developed nations; on the other hand he saw less chance that the western developed countries might offer more concessions that would be regarded as adequate by developing countries than had been the case at the two previous UNCTAD sessions.     

Monetary policy in a developing economy with external debt: Theory and empirics

Using annual data from four open economies (Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico, and Chile), and estimating correlations and generalized impulse responses within the traditional vector autoregressive (VAR) analysis, we find that inflation, both in the short and long run, is negatively correlated with consumption, investment, and the stock of foreign debt. We propose an optimizing model of an open economy with outstanding foreign debt and borrowing constraint that could explain these empirics. In this economy, risk premium depends on creditworthiness measured by debt–income ratio. Firms operate under costly investment, and all transactions involving consumption and investment are subject to cash-in-advance (CIA) constraints.     

Transfer of technology in LDCs

The author discusses the controversial problems connected with the transfer of highly sophisticated technologies to LDCs. In his opinion this transfer and adaptation of technologies is necessary and advantageous, but depends on the development of a national technological capacity of a developing country as a prerequisite.     

Excessive indebtedness of LDCs?

Though even in such cases there may be different opinions, it appears fairly obvious under what conditions a business is excessively indebted. However, there is hardly any agreement on the point where an entire national economy ought to be considered as overindebted. The present article discusses this problem.     

Raw materials in the foreign trade of the LDCs

The developing countries’ championship of what they term an “integrated approach for raw materials” is one of the livellest subjects in the Federal Republic of Germany. Bonn suggests a pragmatic, as distinct from an ideological, approach — for the benefit of the Third World. For this reason it has to be analyzed, whether the raw material sector is the ideal basis for the improvement of the existing situation.     

Trade and development expectations of LDCs

The developing countries are likely to use UNCTAD III to vent their disappointment at this institution’s failure in the past to find a satisfactory solution for the questions of trade and development policy which are of interest to them. The great expectations of the developing countries have in fact been left essentially unfulfilled in regard to development aid, lower trade barriers and grant of preferential tariffs for manufactured and semi-manufactured products as well as in the difficult area of raw material policy.