Managing international debt

The disappointing response to the Mexican debt-swap initiative has shown that financial innovations cannot be relied on solely to reduce the debt burden to levels that reestablish the creditworthiness of major debtors. The following article examines the conventional approach to solving the debt problem as well as a number of new proposals.     

The international debt crisis and the banks

When the international debt crisis broke in 1982 it appeared for a time that the crisis might engulf the international banking system. What part did the banks play in the creation of the problem? What was their role in overcoming the crisis? Dr. Otmar Emminger, former President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, answers these questions and names the consequences the crisis will have on the international banking industry.     

财务管理创新探析

在建立现代企业制度进程中必须强化财务管理,明确财务管理目标,全面实施财务预算管理;建立控制标准,加强成本管理;树立以人为本的理财观念;强化风险管理.     

Growth,innovation and international competitiveness

The past two decades have witnessed considerable shifts in the world income and technology pyramid. A major factor in this was the differing ability of economic systems to bring forth innovations under the pressure of a highly dynamic environment. This article analyses the link between innovation, international competitiveness and growth in the world economy from a Schumpeterian perspective.     

Financial dollarization and debt deflation under a currency board

In the late currency board years, Argentina faced a real exchange rate adjustment through price deflation amidst growing devaluation expectations. Using a firm-level panel database to analyze the incidence of these factors on the currency composition of private debt and on firms’ performance, we find that widespread debt dollarization showed no relationship with the firms’ production mix or the ever-changing probability of a nominal devaluation. While relative price changes favored export-oriented firms with the expected impact on sales, earnings and investment, increases in devaluation expectations elicited only a marginal differential response in investment from more financially dollarized firms. Our findings provide support to two criticisms faced by the Argentine currency board in recent years, namely, that by fueling beliefs in an implicit guarantee it stimulated across-the-board debt dollarization and that it could not fully isolate the economy from real shocks, as the feared balance sheet effect was replaced by a gradual but equally deleterious debt deflation effect.     

金融支持河南农业科技创新的问题及对策研究

金融资本已经成为农业科技创新的重要资金来源,河南农业科技创新的金融支持的方式主要有商业性金融机构贷款、政策性金融机构的贷款及资本市场融资等。存在的问题主要有金融品种较少,中小型涉农科技企业取得贷款较为困难,河南省农业上市公司对农业科技投入不高等。金融支持河南农业科技创新应改革农业发展银行的政策金融支持功能;开发新的金融品种;加大直接融资支持;积极发挥农业保险的作用;发挥财政资金的示范作用;完善农业科技企业的金融中介服务体系。     

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.     

Financial repression and debt liquidation in the USA and the euro area

Rising debt levels have caused a revival of financial repression in the euro area and the USA. The Federal Reserve directly represses US bond yields and assists in financing the state budget, resulting in an overall liquidation effect from falling bond yields of about three per cent of total government revenues and one per cent of GDP in 2011. In the euro area, the ongoing actions to contain the European debt crisis have also repressed interest rates, easing debt-servicing costs in all European countries and reducing the interest rate payments for the German government by about one to two per cent of total government revenues. This article argues that a slight rise in infl ation could even liquidate German debt.     

The international debt problem: An analysis of the Brady plan

Recently the American Treasury Secretary, Nicholas Brady, launched a new initiative in which he proposed reducing the developing countries’ bank debt. What are the elements of the plan, and which countries would benefit? What problems does it entail? Can it bring about a decisive improvement in the international debt situation of the developing countries? The following two articles attempt to answer these questions.     

Can the international debt strategy use the concept of corporate compositions?

So far, it has been possible to stave off really serious consequences for the world economy and the international financial system since the developing-country debt crisis started in 1982. Yet for many developing countries, external debt problems and the underlying economic crisis are as pressing as ever. The following article identifies five central elements of a general orientation framework for dealing with the debt crisis which has been inspired by the basic idea of the concept of corporate compositions found in commercial law.     

Long-term debt maturity and financing constraints of SMEs during the Global Financial Crisis

We use the recent financial crisis to investigate financing constraints of private small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Belgium. We hypothesize that SMEs with a large proportion of long-term debt maturing at the start of the crisis had difficulties to renew their loans due to the negative credit supply shock, and hence could invest less. We find a substantial variation in the maturity structure of long-term debt. Firms which at the start of the crisis had a larger part of their long-term debt maturing within the next year experienced a significantly larger drop in investments in 2009. This effect is driven by firms which are ex ante more likely to be financially constrained. Consistent with a causal effect of a credit supply shock to corporate investments, we find no effect in “placebo” periods without a negative credit supply shock.     

No solution for international monetary problems

At its 14th meeting (in Hamburg) the Interim Committee of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) held further discussions on the establishment of a substitution account through which the monetary authorities would voluntarily transfer a part of their dollar reserves¹ to the IMF in return for interest-bearing claims denominated in Special Drawing Rights (SDR)². The transferred dollars would be invested by the Fund long-term³ in US Government securities so that they would be withdrawn from international circulation. As was to be expected, the meeting did not yet bring an accord. Technical difficulties were stated to be the reason for this but at this juncture no state seems to be especially interested in setting up such an account.     

Parallel imports,drug innovation and international patent protection: A policy game

We consider a policy game between a high-income country hosting a drug innovator and a low-income country hosting a drug imitator. The low-income country chooses whether to enforce an International Patent Regime (strict IPR) or not (weak IPR), and the high-income country chooses whether to allow parallel imports (PI) of on-patent drugs or market-based discrimination (MBD). We show that, for a moderately high imitation cost, both (strict IPR, PI) and (weak IPR, MBD) emerge as the subgame prfect Nash equilibrium (SPNE) policy choices. For relatively smaller imitation costs, (weak IPR, MBD) is the unique SPNE policy choice. The welfare properties reveal that although innovation may be higher at the (strict IPR, PI) policy regime, the market coverage and national welfare of the low-income country, and the total welfare are all lower. This opens up the efficiency issue of implementing TRIPS and at the same time allowing international exhaustion of patent rights.     

Strategic orientations,joint learning,and innovation generation in international customer-supplier relationships

While innovations generated by international supply channel relationships, as opposed to individual partners, are playing an increasingly important role in the success of all international supply chain partnerships, research on how international supply chain relationships cultivate the process of such innovation generation, particularly for contracting suppliers firms, remains scant. This study explores how supplier joint learning capability can play a role in developing both incremental and radical innovations. The empirical test, which used a sample of 204 Taiwanese executives in electronic suppliers, supports most of the hypotheses in the study. The results demonstrate that different strategic orientations can drive various types of innovation through different paths by the mediating effect of joint learning capability. Specifically, we find that long-term orientation influences only incremental innovation, whereas radical innovation is driven by electronic integration and proactive customer orientation by joint learning. Furthermore, environmental uncertainties such as technological uncertainty and demand uncertainty are found to be moderating the impacts of joint learning capability on radical innovations. Some implications of the results are discussed at the end.