Less debt,more schooling? Evidence from cross-country micro data

Soaring levels of public debt in low-income countries are fuelling concerns about their ability to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, such as free access to primary education. In the late 1990s and 2000s, international financial institutions introduced a series of debt relief initiatives aimed to restore debt sustainability among highly indebted countries. This study examines the impact of these initiatives on primary school attendance. We exploit the temporal variation in the implementation of these policies, in combination with individual-level data from 177 Demographic and Health Surveys covering more than 1.5 million school-age children from 44 low-income countries to implement difference-in-differences and spatial difference-in-discontinuity estimators. Results suggest that debt relief initiatives, by freeing up additional public resources, have significantly contributed to increasing primary school attendance in heavily indebted countries. Impact heterogeneity analysis also shows that debt relief has been effective at reducing wealth-based, intergenerational, religious, ethnic and spatial inequalities in education. Our results provide robust evidence to assert that debt relief, in combination with other financing sources, can contribute to improving educational outcomes in highly indebted poor countries.     

Debt,seigniorage, and the Growth Laffer Curve in developing countries

The endogenous growth literature established the existence of an inverted-U curve between taxes and economic growth, namely a Growth Laffer Curve, but empirical evidence on this relationship in developing countries is rather limited. Given that seigniorage and public debt are also important means of financing public spending in these countries, we take into account in this paper their respective impacts on growth, as they might deform the existing relationship between taxes and growth. To this end, we develop a growth model with public investment as the engine of perpetual growth, and look for the effect of debt, tax and money financing on economic growth. We study in particular the way fiscal and monetary policies deform the Growth Laffer Curve in developing countries. An empirical section based on a panel of 100 developing countries over the period 1980–2010 provides both OLS-Fixed Effects and GMM-system estimations that support our theoretical conclusions, namely the existence of Growth Laffer Curves indexed by the levels of debt and of seigniorage.     

Debt markets and corporate debt structure in an emerging market: The South African example

This is a first attempt at gauging the effects of corporate public debt issuance on the debt structure, risk profile and valuation of firms in an emerging market. We find that financial services firms, along with government institutions, are important early supporters of an organized public debt market. Firms in this market use equity, public debt and private debt funds simultaneously as need be. Consistent with predictions of the corporate debt structure literature, public debt-issuing firms are larger, older, more profitable, and less informational opaque than non-public debt-issuing firms. Moreover, public debt-issuing firms experience significant reductions in both overall and systematic risks, and incur lower cost of capital following issuance than non-public debt issuers. These and other findings of the study suggest deepening national debt markets can be a fruitful financial market development exercise for emerging markets.     

中国养老金隐性债务规模估算

随着我国养老保险体制的转轨,现收现付制下形成的隐性债务开始显性化,形成了庞大的统筹资金缺口.而解决养老金隐性债务的基本前提是要准确测算债务规模.本文在分析隐性债务来源的基础上,将我国参保职工分为五类,采取个体成本法精算出2008年初的养老金隐性债务规模.     

关于“债转股”的几点法律思考

政策性债转股包括国有商业银行与金融资产管理公司之间的债权转让和金融资产管理公司与国有企业间以债权换股权这两个法律关系,现阶段实行债转股可对国有企业产生诸如促进企业产权制度改革,减轻企业财务负担,优化企业法人治理结构及促使资产变现等方面的积极影响.但在实践过程中也存在着很多障碍和问题,从而限制了债转股功能的发挥.尽管如此,只要政府能给予支持,立法上能提供有效保护,债转股必然可以给东北国有企业带来一片生机.     

过度投资、公司业绩与债务融资——基于信息对称视角下的持续时间模型研究

基于信息对称的视角,通过建立持续时间模型,并用杠杆比率表示为投资项目进行融资的总成本中债务融资所占的比重来研究债务融资对过度投资和公司业绩的影响.结果发现:当信息是对称的情况下,公司如果发生过度投资便不会出现投资不足,并且债务融资占投资项目总成本的比重越高公司过度投资程度越大.     

养老保险制度"划资偿债"战略研究

由于允许转制成本由制度内措施解决,加之制度设计不规范,当前我国基本养老保险制度已经陷入财务危机。本文认为通过“划资偿债”方式,做大全国社保基金事关我国基本养老保险制度改革成败,并提出了“划资偿债”的思路:划转中央企业和国家重点企业中地方企业国有资产;划转部分国有土地收益。     

The tradeoff between mortgage prepayments and tax-deferred retirement savings

Many households face the tradeoff between paying an extra dollar off the remaining mortgage on their house and saving that extra dollar in tax-deferred accounts (TDAs) used for retirement. We show that, under certain conditions, it becomes a tax arbitrage to reduce mortgage prepayments and to increase TDA contributions because of the tax deductibility of mortgage interest and tax-exemption of qualified retirement savings. Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, we document that a significant number of households that are accelerating their mortgage payments instead of saving in TDAs forgo a profitable tax arbitrage opportunity. Finally, we show empirically that this inefficient behavior is unlikely to be driven by liquidity or other financial constraints. Rather, the observed behavior can be attributed to a certain extent to the reluctance of many households to participate in financial markets as either lenders or borrowers.     

债务重组的会计问题研究

本文根据新会计制度的规定,就债务重组的基本原理五种债务重组方式的会计处理事项分别作了说明,并对中外关于债务重组的处理方法进行了比较,找出了其中的差异。为了寻找更为完善的对债务重组的会计处理方法,本文对新会计制度关于债务重组的某些不足之处进行了讨论,提出了相应的意见和建议。     

Foreign inflows and economic growth: An emiprical study of the SAARC region

The study examines and highlights the impact of selected foreign inflows (aid, trade, FDI, debt and remittances) on the economic growth of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries. The existent literature lacks a comprehensive analysis of the SAARC countries as countries like Afghanistan, Bhutan and the Maldives have largely been ignored due to the shorter time periods of available data. The study is empirical in nature and utilizes panel data techniques on macroeconomic data for the period 2008–2015. Foreign aid and foreign direct investment are found to impact economic growth positively. Foreign debt and trade flows are found to adversely affect economic growth. No relationship is established between the flow of remittances and the economic growth of these countries. The obtained results are robust to different proxy variables and the addition of macroeconomic variables. For the first time, the study provides policy implications based on the data of all SAARC countries. The study recommends focusing on increasing the inflows of resources in the form of aid and foreign direct investment (FDI) from the developed world to achieve higher economic growth.